Clash
by shezwriter
Summary: When Rose resurrects her brother, she pushes the world to the brink of another war. Meanwhile Albus, cold and brilliant, may just be the second coming of Tom Riddle. Forced to work together to unravel their parents' suspicious deaths, they must solve the past if they want to survive the future. And answer the question: Just why does history keep repeating itself?
1. Her

**Clash is an apocalyptic next gen. Non-OBHWF. It is heavily character driven. It jumps between past and future. The story is intentionally confusing at first; it makes more sense as it goes.**

 **There is romance. It plays a big part, but I won't give spoilers.**

 **Rated M for horror, graphic violence, mentions of rape themes (No graphic scenes), language, sexual content, substance abuse, sensitive subjects, and ambiguous relationships between family members. Please don't read if any of these bother you.**

 **March 23, 2019: Undergoing edits. **

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 **2087**

With a _hisssss_ the airlock on the sealed door opened and I took a shaky step inside.

It was my first of fifteen ordained visits to Her Majesty's Prison—Monster Mansion—home to the largest number of war prisoners in England following the magical catastrophe of 2031. At one point in history it'd been an all-male prison.

Now it housed the most dangerous woman in all of England.

The inside was humid. Perspiration quickly soaked the armpits of my starched, white shirt. I felt overdressed, out-of-place. Too prim and proper and _academic_ , among the grey-eyed, washed looking men in uniforms. I didn't meet the gruff stare of the overweight man who verified my clearance status. I stayed mum as he escorted me down a long flight of stairs, followed by a dim spindly hallway. As we approached her cell, I dabbed incessantly at the sweat-sheen forming at my forehead, trying to push back my springy, forever-messy curls.

I could almost feel the infamous 'magic' rising in the air.

More than an academic fixation of mine, more than papers and debates…this woman was the subject of _dreams_.

The relic of a dying age.

The fabled last witch.

In the flesh, behind the bars, she sat.

I took her in. Her age was impossible to tell from appearance alone (magic-folk, based on my research, aged slower than normal people) but what remained of historical records placed her at eighty-one. Her legs were crossed, hands politely folded in her lap. Her mannerisms resembled ones of a quaint grandmother.

My heart stuttered a little when she flashed me a formal—a disarmingly well-mannered—smile.

This was not at all how I had pictured England's most notorious criminal.

"Do sit down, Mr. Walker. I won't bite," she spoke, her voice deep, and so raspy it ran shivers down my spine. I sunk into my seat. We sat face to face, my hands restless as I removed pen and paper from my bag. I took a deep breath.

"Ms. Weasley, I'm going to state a series of facts that I will need you to validate—"

"Rose," she interrupted, smiling. "Call me Rose."

I blinked twice, trying to regain my composure. I opened my notebook and scribbled _prefers to be called Rose._

I drew another deep breath.

"Your name is Rose Weasley," I began.

"True."

"You are the last of your kind."

"True."

"There are no more wizards or witches in the world."

"True."

"Given the choice to live the remainder of your life in prison or death, you chose death."

"True."

"You have fifteen days to live."

"Also true."

"When you die, there will be no more magic in this world."

She did not reply at once. I looked up to meet a pensive stare, curious yet somehow reserved in its manner.

"How much do you know about magic, Mr. Walker?" she asked.

I pressed my dry lips before reciting what I knew by heart: magic was an anomaly in the natural world, both a moral and biological abomination. Magic was a weapon, mechanized from the faulty genetics of a dangerous people. It had taken countless lives since and before the Inevitable War, destroyed entire areas of England from Camden to York, all the way north to the Scottish Highlands and—

"I did not ask for your professors' opinions on the matter, Mr. Walker. Or the textbook definition. What do you know, truly _know_ , about magic?"

I blinked.

The woman studied me with a curious expression. I felt dumbfounded. "Ms. We...Rose, I suppose," I stammered. "We aren't allowed to…you see, the government doesn't—"

"But that is why you're here isn't it?"

I grew quiet.

She smiled again. "You are a historian. An Intellectual," she said observantly. "You came looking for answers, didn't you? You want to know what happened that blew the best kept secret of mankind— _magic_."

Had she read my mind? Could she see into my past, the years of painstaking work I had done to get here? I had no friends, girlfriend, or social life, only a sharp mind and a curiosity too insatiable to be anything but a vice. I was obsessed with the world of dragons and broomsticks and unfathomable mystery, a world to which I did not and would not ever belong. But this did not stop me from late night pouring over texts ranging from the likes of Merlin to Rowena Ravenclaw, from Albus Dumbledore to the legendary Harry Potter himself.

It was I, perhaps, that had discovered a startling gap in mankind's collection of knowledge. A crack in the glass wall that could have been easily overlooked if you weren't out looking for it.

The Inevitable War—which took place between the magical and muggle realms fifty years ago—had no recorded _cause_.

Tell me everything that happened, I said. The war—no, no the war was the end. I want to know everything that led to it. I want to know every instance, accident, revelation that caused the precise calculations of the downward spiral. I want to know your life, Ms. Weasley. I want to know _you_. All of you. Each and every broken piece of history that I can preserve is a step towards building a better future, and— no, that's bullshit. That's what I told the guys at the security clearance. The truth is that I have no noble reason for knowing. The truth is that the archives over at the Manchestor Magical Library are _dreadfully_ empty. So I'll keep your secrets, Ms. Weasley. I just want to know.

"How did you survive?"

"Survive? My— why, because I'm a _parasite_ ," she said with a laugh, humorless. "Isn't that what they teach you in school, about us? Well no matter, I really don't mind. But know this—surviving is a habit I've perfected only after years of practice. I have escaped death sentences before. If I liked, I could escape this cell, I could kill each and every one of the guards, I could kill _you_ , and I would leave without too much trouble."

"But where would you go?" I asked, undaunted.

"That's the problem, isn't it?" I could see the outline of every crack on her darkened face, hear the fatigue in her voice. "Freedom has a price, Mr. Walker. Nothing is without consequence. It took me a lifetime to understand that."

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 **2020**

 **X**

 **X**

 **X**

What was Magic?

Witchcraft and wizardry was founded, presumably, on the principles of science. Magic was only energy. Energy that wizards manipulate to perform various functions.

 _Please let him live._

The inherent truth is that energy cannot be created or destroyed.

 _He's all she had left._

Needless to say—there are some things outside the realm of possibility. The creation of something out of nothing. But reviving someone on the brink of death?

 _God. Merlin. Please. Both of you. Either of you. Anyone. Is anyone out there?_

 _The two of them drenched by rain, she sat holding his little body. Slowing pulse. Dilating pupils. He was going under again, sickly little Hugo, only this time it was heartbreakingly worse. His sweet baby face, crumpled from the severe pain, had started to relax. The hand that had so tightly gripped hers, so many times, had begun to loosen—no. Hot tears sprang to her eyes._

At its core though, magic isn't just a collection of spells. It's not a compilation of potion ingredients. It's not the stream of light that comes out the end of a First Year's shaky wand. It is the essence of consciousness, an algorithm, an amplified mixture of willpower and highly concentrated neural energy. Words are a superfluous attribution, uttered to increase focus. In its simplest form, magic is an idea. And a very good idea, mind you.

 _He had a sickness called_ _Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. He had been a ticking clock from the day he had been born. Now he would die right in front of her. Except, he couldn't—not like this! There had to be something, anything! Vital seconds of his lifespan trickled away as she wracked her brain for answers. Concentrating as hard as she could. Ideas whirred through her mind faster than tears slipped through her eyes. Tentatively gripping her wand, she began muttering incantations—nonsense, made-up syllables. With her head bent, her focus consisted on one thing only: the preservation of his life._

 _She had no idea what would happen._

Just as every algorithm has a heuristic, there are techniques in magic that are able to bypass… certain technicalities. Still, you can't get nothing without something. There is always a price.

 _A bright vortex of light emerged from under her, consuming both her and Hugo's limp body. She gripped him as hard as she could to avoid separation. Wind and flame swirled around them at an impossible pace. The force, spell, whatever the hell you want to call it, was out of control. It felt as though a surge of lightning had shot through her body. She screamed in pain. She screamed in anger._

 _Thunder boomed in response as the destructive and reparative force burned through her insides. Then for a split second, while it felt like her entire body would be ripped apart, everything stopped. Time stood still. The searing pain vanished instantaneously. Vision blurred, noises deafened, any semblance of reality disappeared for a few brief moments, until she fell limp on Hugo's body. She couldn't move her legs._

 _In that moment it didn't matter. Both of them were breathing heavily._

 _Breathing._

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In the circular chambers of the Wizengamot, blinding lights struck the fifteen-year old girl's face. An emotionless, booming voice pronounced her name.

"Rose Weasley—How do you plead to the charges made against you?"

Her fingertips dug into the sides of her wheelchair; she swallowed her flinch, leaning forward.

"And what would those be?" she asked, bravely.

Amidst the crowd of indistinguishable faces, Minister Kingsley, longtime friend of her parents, gave her an impassive stare.

"The use of untested dark magic."

Foreboding murmurs echoed through the chambers. Kingsley slammed his hammer, enforcing silence. "We don't have all day, Ms. Weasley; _How_ do you plead?"

She could feel her heart plunge. There weren't words to describe the hopelessness she felt. The vestibule, hollow expanse of space, allowed for the entire scenario to play out in her head.

From the confines of her wheelchair, she would try to lift herself up.

If I could just explain — _Answer the question, Ms. Weasley! How do you plead?_ How should I plead when you've already made your decision!? I'm going to Azkaban. _You brought your dead brother back to life. He should have died!_ I saved him. _Have you considered the magnitude of your actions, Ms. Weasley? Everything your parents fought,_ ** _died_** _, to protect —do you have any idea of precisely the damage you have caused in trying to play God?_ I saved him. _The ripples of your actions? The Pandora's box you have opened for every other wizard in the world?_ I saved him. I don't give a damn.

"Guilty, then."

There was silence in the room as people who had been watching her collectively let their gaze swivel toward the minister, awaiting his verdict.

All except the man on the left.

The man on the left was different. He was dressed a bit too fashionably for the grim occasion, navy plaid suit, salon-perfect hair, and wore the glowering expression of someone who was rarely pleased. The man on the left was wrongfully ambitious for his current position as the Head Auror, and had an angular face marked with a single scar running over the left side to the pointed chin. The man on the left was not interested in what Kingsley had to say—he had never liked the sodding prick anyway. He was far too busy observing the fifteen-year-old girl, her tight jawline, the firmness of her brow, the occasional expression of fear that would flash in her eyes and falter the façade she held in the face of her verdict. She possessed an agile frame, nothing special but workable, and though her legs were limp and weak, with the right amount of training, he could see them become muscular. She was neither big nor small nor plain nor conventionally pretty (which was excellent, because prettiness would annoy him) but fine featured and lean. Except for that startlingly bright hair, she was a blank canvas. There was potential. He could morph her easily.

With a peculiar grace, the Head Auror stood up and cleared his throat.

"My dear Minister, allow me to offer a suggestion on behalf of the girl."

Kingsley considered the Head with disdainful deliberation. "Very well, Vincent."

"Grant me custody."

The Minister blinked twice, quite unsure what he had heard was correct. Never would he have considered the Head of Law Enforcement the type of man with paternal instinct or a fondness of children. Rather the opposite. Rose, meanwhile, had not yet recovered from the jaw-dropping statement.

"Precisely what do you intend to do with custody?"

"I meant professional custody, of course. Allow me to make Rose Weasley an asset to the Ministry. She is young, weak, injured—but I believe there is potential in her. She can reside under my surveillance where we may study the effects of dark magic on her. In the meantime, I shall train her personally."

"Need I remind you, Vincent," the Minister stated, his nostrils flaring, "that being awarded the rank of Auror is a _privilege_ —which not to mention requires complete schooling and outstanding OWLS, neither of which Ms. Weasley possesses—"

"Yet it cannot be denied she has displayed prodigious talent in witchcraft."

The Minister sputtered. "Why—this is an utterly _ridiculous_ proposition …I shall not hear another word of this nonsense! It's settled! Rose Weasley is going to answer for her mistakes and nothing else!"

Just when Rose thought the nonsense had ended, the Head intervened again, on her behalf:

"My Dear Minister, you may feel comfortable with sentencing an under-aged orphan to Azkaban, but I assure you that many others in this room, much like myself, do not. Perhaps we shall put it to the jury to decide."

Rose learned something about irony that day, as each hand slowly rose to commit her fate to a lifetime of servitude, the Minister's nostrils flared, and the scary man in the suit eyed her like a champion prize horse (or perhaps a useless piece of shit. They had only just met. She was not so sure what a hawk-like glare meant yet). Within minutes she had gone from contemplating Azkaban to being adopted.

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The Head lived by himself and two house elves—German, polar opposites by the names of Una and Gus who were always bickering and flinging strongly worded insults at each other. The Head enjoyed this clash of personalities in the same way one enjoys a glass of lemonade of a hot summer day. The house itself was nothing short of extravagant, with its larger than life décor and spiraling staircase, and a grand dining room with enough seating for an army yet held only a distraught girl and fashionably dressed man that particular evening.

Una and Gus had, as always, prepared a contrasting meal of Mediterranean and Japanese cuisine, though the Head wasn't as much interested in food as he was in his new ward. As he chewed on his tonkatsu slowly, he observed her from across the table—the hollow, darkened eyes, the hunched over demeanor, the mangled urchin _I'm-not-hungry_ look.

So resolute. So… _adolescent_.

He knew, of course, that he would crush her defiant spirit in due time, mold and shape it into submission. He had crushed the hardest and strongest of men, most being his political rivals. He had crushed many beings throughout his life, on his upward ascension to his future reign as the Minister of Magic, and a silly little child was nothing different.

He had provided Rose Weasley with food. Which meant she had to eat. She would never grow if she didn't eat, and if she starved to death, he would be prosecuted on charges of abuse…which would damage his prospective chances of becoming the Minister.

Unacceptable.

"Not hungry?" he asked irritatedly.

She said nothing. He tapped the tip of his glass impatiently, waiting. Was this defiance or was she simply not much of a talker? Not that he minded the latter; he had no interest in indulging teenage girl chatter about shoes and clothes and boys and whatnot. The last thing he wanted with his new ward was a relationship _not_ wrought in fear and mutual resentment.

The kitchen rattled with bickering between Una and Gus. There was a clattering of pans followed by violent threats made in German.

"Gus! Put down the knife or I deduct from your pay!" the Head called.

 _"Meister bezahlt mich nicht!"_ _Master doesn't pay me!_

This was followed by the loud pattering of feet and shrill sobbing.

"Well now look what you've done, Gus," the Head tsked, pouring himself a glass of wine. "Go make a healing potion and apologize to Una. This is not how families behave!"

 _Family._ That word must've triggered something because the girl's head shot up.

"I have aunts, uncles," she said, her voice soft, her brow furrowed in frustration. "And no one's come to get me. Why?"

"Who knows, maybe they just don't like you. Maybe no one's _ever_ liked you. Did you think of that?"

She stared at him, wide-eyed, confounded.

Inwardly, the Head reassessed his remark wondering if perhaps he had been insensitive. Damn this child raising business. He put down his wine glass and pulled out a cigar.

"Look, Weasley," he said as he lit it. "I know it's hard to believe, but no one really likes orphans. If you ever get the chance to have kids, you'll understand. In fact you've probably been a burden on everyone since your parents died, especially your Aunt… _Germy_?"

"Ginny."

He puffed, coughing as he accidentally inhaled too deeply. "Right, right. Well, life is a cruel, tough place and it's only when you're in trouble you realize how alone you are. Not to mention you've broken rules that would scare the hell out of most people. They probably think you're some reincarnation of Herpo or le Fay or, _Merlin forbid_ , our most recent Tommy. "

At this point there was so much smoke in the room, Gus had reentered to open windows. Una was holed up in the bathrooms crying her eyes out. Rose had not made a single movement. The Head paused only for a moment of deliberation before continuing.

"However, I'm not most people, Weasley, so this misunderstood urchin thing won't work with me. I can see you don't feel a sliver of remorse for your actions, nor do I particularly care. But you're ambitious and I like that. You will train and study under me, and, further on, serve as my right hand and secret vessel of power. I will make you stronger than you could ever imagine. In turn you will help me achieve my subversive goals until I become the Minister of Magic. Is that understood?"

He had intended —or maybe just _hoped_ — that this information would be a shock for her. That it would be outrageous, exciting, and scandalous. Or maybe there would be outrage for the depravity of his request and self-serving agenda. But there was none of that either.

There was nothing.

The look in her eyes was hollow.

Irritated that he wasn't making a suitably frightening first impression, the Head continued: "But that doesn't mean you can feel free to make yourself at home. I'm _not_ your father and I have _no_ interest in pretending to be Ron Weasley—You will address me as Sir or the Head or nothing at all. Because you are my ward, you will live by my rules and restrictions, which means no boys, no drinking, no communication with boys, no junk food, no _thoughts_ about boys, and no magic without permission. Also, there will be no talking to reporters and boys of any kind and curfew is when I say it is."

"Will I get to see him?"

The Head stared at her for a moment, in dismay.

"My brother. If I do this for you, will I get to see him?"

"If that's…all you want, I don't see why not."

"That's all I want."


	2. Him

I realized quickly Rose Weasley was leaving out information. She wasn't telling me how her parents died, where her brother was, why her family didn't help her, the political climate of her setting. I was probably jumping ahead of myself so, naturally, I assumed these were pieces she was leaving out deliberately and would be explained in due time. Right now, there was a bigger question on my mind.

"So what was the deal with you and Albus?"

The old woman looked oddly nostalgic.

"What do you know about Harry Potter, Mr. Walker?"

"Enough." I knew about the prophecy, the Great War, the Dark Lord, the whole saving-the-world bit.

"You should know then that Albus was _nothing_ like his father."

There was a brief silence.

"Yes, that much has been very clear."

"It wasn't his fault though."

"So it was your fault then."

"It's hard to pinpoint the blame on any one person for what happened with him, but yes, partly it may have been mine. There were others: his mother for instance, Scorpius, and then his brother, although Jamesy always tried his best, bless him. Most was his father's though."

"His father was dead at the time."

"Exactly."

"Where did it all go wrong then?"

"I wouldn't know. There was no one simple instance. Though I'm sure it started far before we even realized it."

"Did you love him?"

An intersecting set of emotions developed on her face to create a split second of hesitation. Recovering, she gave a strained smile:

"Love is not an emotion easily associated with Albus."

"You didn't answer my question."

"He was my family. I cared for his well-being."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"His own mother despised him."

"You're avoiding the question."

"Then I have no broader explanation for you," she replied, very coldly. "You may assume what you wish about us."

I decided that I would. Then I asked my final question for the evening.

"Do you have any regrets about the way it ended with him?"

There was absolute silence.

"Good night, Mr. Walker."

X

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I tapped the edge of the wardrobe twice and turned the knob like a combination lock. It opened it to reveal a fountain-like structure—a pensieve.

More specifically, the pensieve of Albus Potter.

Legend stated that in his old home, he had the device tailored to his mind. That it contained not only his memories, but memories of those around him. And that these memories would be more than just faint recollections, but very vivid and intimate accounts that read like journal entries. The observer would be able to sense the emotions of many.

It would no doubt help with my research, but I had to wonder why Albus would make his recollections so…intimate.

In all the rubble and chaos and disorder, what could he have been trying to preserve?

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Harry smiled at his four-year-old son. "Albus, will you come with me please?"

Ginny shot her husband a curious look but said nothing as Albus stood up and obediently walked over. Gingerly reaching down, Harry picked up his son and held him in his arms. The thin-faced boy bore an even more perplexing similarity to the father in such closeness. "Albus and I'll be back in a bit, Gin."

Apparation. Together, boy and man burned through space and countless dimensions, miles in milliseconds, their grips tightening and loosening as they clung on to each other. Still, a seamless journey, for it was one that the bright-eyed boy had grown used to. It was only Albus that Harry would apparate with on these 'business' trips, for it was only Albus, calm and level-headed and highly intelligent, who possessed the extraordinary aptitude for reading his father— to the extent that not a single facial expression, variation in tone, or behavioral tick of his went by unnoticed. Infant Lily was fussy and an avid screamer, and James, though brave and well-intentioned, didn't have the head for it.

Thunder shook the heavens as they surfaced amid a dense, sight-blurring haze in the middle of nowhere. Albus watched his father point a wand toward a barren patch on the ground and mutter an incantation—with a swift, sudden rumble, from its place began rising a dilapidated shack-house with burnt panes and windows boarded from the inside.

Subtle folds formed around Daddy's eyes, which meant he was distressed. But why? The small boy shot him an inquisitive look but knew better than to ask. Most families have secrets, but the Potters were particularly notorious for their thickly coated web of lies. Even one as young as Albus understood that discretion was vital for maintaining secrecy. He was expected to share in his father's burden, whether or not he knew it, since one cannot tell what one does not fully understand.

 _Loyalty_

What mattered most to Albus was that Daddy trusted him above all others. Years later he would see the fundamental error in his thinking.

Standing outside the shack, Harry put Albus down and told him what he always did:

"Stand by the door and do not, under _any_ circumstance, come inside."

As always, Albus gave a solemn nod and watched his father go through the doorway. Moments later, came the wretched sounds of screaming –long, guttural, pain-stricken shrieks. To drown out the awful noise, Albus clasped his hands over his ears, forcing every ounce of control he had over himself not to go inside.

It was _his father's_ screams that pounded against his eardrums.

 _Obedience_

 _He'll come back. He wouldn't leave me like this._ Silent tears streamed down his small face. Minutes felt like hours dragging by as the small boy, stood, with teary eyes clenched shut, miserable, waiting for the end of his cruel and unusual torture. It was in these moments that Albus felt he might've hated his father.

 _Resentment_

Still, Albus knew why it was him Daddy brought. James was strong and brave, but he couldn't harden his heart. Albus could. He could push emotions aside and do the rational thing. He understood that in order to survive, he'd have to harden his mind. It would become part of a series of challenges his father put him through, indefinitely shaping the core of his personality.

 _Self-preservation_

Years later, nightmares would haunt his sleep and he would spew venom at his father for making him so cold. A near-monster who relied on cunning and manipulation and detested any form of intimacy. Who was swayed by neither friendship nor love.

But moments later, when Harry emerged well and alive, all feelings of anything but relief would be forgotten, and Albus would cling to his leg until he was picked up again.

Most times Albus was compliant enough to accept his father's following silence, but occasionally curiosity got the better of him.

"Did you kill him?"

Not an accusation but an inquiry. An innocent one.

"Do you really think your father is a murderer, Albus?"

The boy considered the words for a moment before answering in a small voice: "Sometimes."

The ends of Harry's mouth curved downward. "Well I'll tell you. There's only one time you could say Daddy's taken a life and today wasn't it."

Albus looked equal parts scared and curious. Then, a hushed whisper: "I want to know when."

"Of course you do. You're my son, after all." An expression of pain flickered over Harry's face.

"Know that there once was a Dark Lord. And that he was betrayed, cast aside, and destroyed by his own mantle of power. But know that there must always be a Dark Lord, one capable of unfathomable horrors. One who has been hurt in the heart and will hurt in return."

Albus buried his face into Harry's shoulder. "I fear, son, that history has a habit of repeating itself."

 _Fear_

"Who will stop the new dark lords, Daddy?"

"My dear Albus," Harry sighed, clasping a hand to the frightened boy's head. "I won't be around forever."

X

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He readjusted himself on the wooden stool, feeling like cattle about to be butchered in front of the mass of anxious eyes trained on him, hungrily waiting. Here was the momentous Sorting of Harry Potter's second son. Even at the age of eleven he knew exactly what was expected of him.

So he didn't just plead with the Sorting Hat –he begged. But apparently, it was through making exceptions for his family.

"Trust me Potter, I can read your heart," replied the snide voice. "In it, I see neither your father's courage nor his well-intentioned character. I see…my, my, you're a slippery one aren't you? Deviant, lustfully aching to prove yourself and yet… let's just say I'd do you a disservice Potter, if I didn't put you in the right House."

Uncle Ron's words rang in his head, pulsating in step with the frantic beating of his heart: _There's not a wizard that hadn't gone wrong that wasn't sorted in Slytherin._

"Put me in Ravenclaw and I'll be the cleverest boy I can be, Hatty," he murmured. "You know I have it in me."

The Sorting Hat gave a disgusted snort. "You want more than just cleverness, Potter. That you attempt to bribe me with false promises proves you truly belong with the serpents."

Please. Anything, anything but—

He winced as the Sorting Hat proclaimed, "SLYTHERIN!"

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He knew from the very beginning that he wasn't like the others. That he was smarter, _better_. He absorbed all that he read—his mind was an engine, racing at a speed impossible to match. He excelled with a fluidness that left other high-achieving students like Rose in dismay. She ached over every word, every sentence, over the constant hum of sleepless nights and blistering of fingers to achieve a similar level of excellence, but words came to _him_ as if from an ethereal source. Line by line, with a flourish of the pen, he gained momentum, his fingertips feverishly trying to capture the speed of his racing mind.

They had started their magical education together far before Hogwarts, pouring through the same books since they could read, practicing spells in the pitch of night with their parents' wands. They dabbled in potions, creating concoctions from the simplest ingredients they could find. It was more than just living up to their potential. Children of the Golden Trio—in a sense they had their lives already defined for them. But this, _this_ was rebellion at its finest. It was raw and unprecedented ambition, egging them to achieve and compete, to see who could master the hardest charm, the most complex potions.

Nothing was off-limits.

Schooling tamed Rose, but it left Albus to wrestle with a problem he had never encountered: boredom. Classes were juvenile and teachers easy to sway—he was clever in a way that it was almost a vice. For this reason he often found himself at odds with the other students.

"Little sod!"

His arms were pinned against the wall by the older children, his shirt was torn from clawing. Lip bled, torso ached from the countless kicks—meanwhile his bladder was bursting for release. The three insufferable Sixth Years had forced a terrible-tasting potion down his throat, holding his mouth open with their mangy hands. His feeble attempts to dismember their fingers resulted in a swift kick to the groin.

After a painful three hours, it happened. The boys cackled viciously at his quivering chin, widening eyes, as a wet patch formed in the front of his pants.

The boys, sniggering, kicked him several more times for good measure and stalked away.

Unlike any other small boy, he did not cry. He was, perhaps, incapable. He lay on the ground, contemplating the weakness that had brought him to this point—his size? Is that what it was?

Pathetic.

"Are you ok?"

He shook himself into consciousness, glancing up to meet a blond mess of hair with startling grey eyes, mouth agape.

"What the hell happened to you, Potter? Don't tell me you had a row with the Whomping Willow. _Again._ "

A groan escaped his lips; It was the resident Slytherin nuisance. The other Second Years feared and despised Albus, but Malfoy was incessantly challenging his presence, being a smartarse.

"Leave it. I'm fine."

"Well whoever it was, they did you up pretty good this time. I bet you can't even stand."

"I said it's fine! Just go away!"

Malfoy's brows drew up. "Prove it."

Albus lifted his torso carefully, using the wall to steady himself, but his knees gave out from under him and he collapsed. He tried again and failed. Again. Again. After several horribly failed attempts, he glanced up to find the curious extension of a hand. He studied it disdainfully.

"I didn't ask for your help," he informed, cold, petulant.

"Shut up and take my hand…. _Potter_. And hurry up before someone turns the corner and sees us."

This was an imperative moment, for he knew taking the hand meant admitting vulnerability. True perfection was unattainable but the impression of it depended upon covertly hiding one's weaknesses. Once he took this hand, he would leaving himself entirely open, at the mercy of something he couldn't control.

Albus took the hand and Scorpius's face flickered with an uncontrolled smile that he quickly drew back into a sneer. He lifted Albus up and pulled the injured boy's arm around his shoulder, helping him limp toward the Hospital Wing.

"Hey Potter, guess what…you smell like piss."

"Shut _up_."

X

X

X

They quickly went from _Potter_ and _Malfoy_ to— well, Potter and Scorp. It was unexpected in the same way it was unnatural. How could the heir of the most notorious ex-Death Eater family in the Wizarding World, get on so well with the Chosen One's youngest son?

A good part of it was because the Scorpius was _bored_.

Only child, coddled from birth, born into a cradle of wealth.

 _Boring_.

Another part of it was because the Post-War world was shit. First and second years little Scorpy walked around with cotton balls in ears to avoid hearing the jeers about his father while that estranged Potter boy, too Slytherin and clever for his own good, sported daily taunts and beatings. These were days both remembered well but neither discussed in adulthood, not even with each other. Slytherin House was associated with the losing side. It held with more disdain than ever. Scorp knew Potter heard most of these jeers over the table at the Burrow than anywhere else, when key adults had turned necks. Meanwhile Scorp, who had spent most of his glass-castle childhood in isolation, somehow felt even lonelier surrounded by names like Zabini, Crabbe, Goyle, Higgs. There was a noiselessness he couldn't break through, one had to do with faded loyalties and outdated war and his father's painful past hung out like dirty laundry for the Whole Damn Wizarding World To See.

But Potter wasn't his father, just like Scorpius wasn't his: both boys were painfully conscious of this. Scorp may have offered his hand first, out of genuine concern, but the fact their peers anticipated rivalry between them may have pushed Potter to take it. An alliance borne of pragmatism and _spite_... it seemed they held a shared goal in wanting to piss as many people off as possible.

Scorpius helped clean Potter up after his brawls, always with a cocky grin— _can't go a day without trouble, eh dumbarse?_ Potter could whiff out the different potions laced in their morning pumpkin juice— _drink that and your tongue'll sprout hair_ —smirking his cold smirk as the blond grimaced, pushing the goblet away. Scorpius snuck out the food on late nights they spent exploring the castle, uncovering hidden corridors and locked rooms, retracing their fathers' steps through history with a certain Marauder's Map. They were both afflicted with the same sense of adventure.

Scorp always joked it was necessary for people with names as horrible sounding as theirs to stick together, but there was more truth in it than he knew. _Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy_. Over the next four years they would become a notorious duo. By the end of Second Year, Albus had scared their other dorm mates away and secured the space for them alone. Third Year was when their reputations finally dawned. Scorpius became Slytherin beater and _a sodding good one_ at that— a personable boy, an athletic icon. Meanwhile Albus rose to the top in academics, solidifying his reputation as the cold brilliant mind he was.

As if intelligence alone wasn't enough for a power complex, over the years Potter became what some would call handsome. In an artistic sense Scorpius could admit he was aesthetically pleasing. Aside from the common features— dark hair, medium stature, pale green eyes— Albus had a distinct, and yet deliberate way of holding himself, with poised shoulders and a firm brow that furrowed when provoked —and a tilted smile that, in the rare instance he _did_ smile, always bordered on the enigmatic.

By fourth year, Albus had turned the school's social structure on its head. It was not easy. Scorpius had the privilege of seeing it all from his bedside—the way Albus practiced in front of the mirror, lines, facial expressions, practicing the _crap_ he would later use to sway teachers and older classmates. The influence started out small, subtle for some reason as, and Scorpius noticed, social conduct didn't come naturally to Potter. He was prodigious at magic—but the other things were not as easy. Therefore, interactions had to be calculated. Words had to be planned, practiced, _perfected_.

Scorpius knew that they used each other. He needed a thrill. Potter needed an accomplice. Pure and simple. Potter even helped him study, if with his usual derision and scorn. Meanwhile Scorp took part in dangerous schemes; Potter used him unabashedly, but he was obvious about it in way that could almost be considered honesty. Direct manipulation was required very little: Scorp was already too comfortable taking the same dangerous risks.

Sometimes when they were really bored, they even played _chess_.

X

X

X

Fourth Year. Hogwarts. Yule Ball.

A tall, gangly silhouette stood over the dessert table stuffing his face. Platinum Blond hair. Bored grey eyes. Dark protruding brows coupled with square shoulders gave him a tight expression of annoyance.

Scorp hated dances. He postulated that they were only held to humiliate boys. He had already been shot in the eye by an ice cube (stupid house elf), sent his date crying back to her dorm, been conned out of his entire allowance once more by Potter in chess. And to make everything so much worse, he was currently being approached by that annoying Rose Weasley.

"Hey Malfo—"

"I haven't seen Potter. Go away."

Over the years they had been at odds with each other. Scorpius could admit it was mostly his fault—he had an inexplicable tendency to say something revolting and offensive whenever he opened his mouth around her, but then again, _she_ never did anything but inflame the issue.

She made an annoyed sound deep in her throat. "That's not what I was going to ask—"

"That's what you usually ask," he said accusingly. "And I'm telling you that he didn't do it this time. I was _there!_ "

It wasn't _his_ fault she had gotten unfairly better-looking over the years, or that he had the communication skills of a troll. It wasn't _his_ fault he pelleted her with gobstones last Valentine's Day and inadvertently sent her to the hospital wing. He couldn't control what his body did—damn it, he was _fifteen_!

"Calm down you git. I just came to tell that you were looking nice tonight, for a change."

The unexpected compliment marked a shift in tone, and Scorpius could feel his body tighten. Then he opened his mouth.

"Wish I could say the same about you."

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.

She flushed bright pink, and not the pretty one either. The angry one.

"You—you're a sodding pig, Malfoy. And I don't care what you think. It's not like I was going to ask you to dance!"

"Well… good." He quickly folded his arms. "I wouldn't have said yes anyway."

"Good! I wouldn't want you to!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

Rose stormed away, towards the dessert table on the adjacent side of the large chambers, fuming.

"I leave you two alone for ten minutes and you're at each other's throats."

An arm drew around her shoulder, startling her as it pulled her close, and she nearly yelped.

"He started it, Al. He always starts it," she grumbled.

"Malfoy can't help it," her cousin dismissed, nonchalantly, easily pulling her through the throngs of people. "His hormones always go mad when you're around. Especially tonight when you're looking half-way decent—I mean pretty."

She scoffed, ignoring the smudge of a smile on his lips. Albus could be so very charming when he wasn't being an outright bastard. And of course, there was always a catch.

"Save it," she said, already irritated, "Tell me what you want."

His deferential smile flickered for a second. "You think I'm being insincere?"

She was certain Albus wouldn't know sincerity if it hit him in the face.

"I don't want to play games tonight."

He turned to her, eyes flickering humorously across her face.

"A dance, then?" he offered, yanking her hand over and pressing a quick, playful kiss on the back of her fingers. "I wasn't paying attention during when they were teaching the waltz—I _need_ help."

"Albus _no,_ " she complained, stamping her foot.

"Albus _yes,_ " he insisted, annoyingly yanking her close by the hands and then positioning his on her hips.

The whole idea was ridiculous. It wasn't as if Al had any shortage of willing partners to resort to asking his cousin. And of course he didn't care about the rumors. All that mattered was that Scorp was shooting daggers into the back of his skull and his Posey Rosey Posey was too preoccupied to drift away. Only Albus could put his hands on her waist, her own arms around his neck, and get away with holding her so close.

He wasn't just her cousin but her best friend, her confidante; the only one who knew her despair. He knew this. Her small frail heart hung close to his chest as they swayed slightly. Resting her chin on his shoulder, she'd let her mind wander in a peace-less silence.

"Still ogling Malfoy over my shoulder, Rosie? How…. _predictable._ "

"Don't act like you know what's on my mind."

"I always know what's on your mind," he gloated, his voice a soft hum against her ear. There was only one thing on her mind, in the dead of night and the hum of class. What kept her in the library, away from the desire of friends and dating and parties every weekend. He had known her since birth, seen her at every turn of her life— and she was too damn predictable. As if Albus couldn't see the only thing her fragile little world existed around.

"Hugo's going to be fine at the hospital."

"He's dying, Al," she choked out, glad he couldn't see the swelling of her eyes. "They admitted him yesterday. They said he's dying and there's nothing I can do about it."

"People die."

"Shut up."

"And if I told you we could change that, you wouldn't listen to me."

She halted mid-step. They'd had this discussion before, over the boiling of illegal potions and practice duels in the Forbidden forest. Between heated arguments about the modern applications of alchemy and Flamelian philosophy and dark texts.

She pulled away to give him a scathing look. "You're screwing with me."

"It's not a joke. I've been—listen, I've been doing some research on the properties of the resurrection stone…I think I'm onto something," he said, his eyes unnaturally bright. "I'll have you look at my dad's old texts on it later."

Rose knew better to be swayed by his niceties.

"Why are you doing this?"

His eyes narrowed onto her, all semblance of affection dropped at once. "You don't think I'd be the slightest bit interested in the prospect of resurrection? he demanded coldly.

"I know you," she hissed, lowering her voice so no one could hear her, "You've been practicing the Unforgivables on spiders since Second Year. You're not interested in _saving_ lives. I'm not an idiot. So I'll ask you again, _what's the catch?_ "

His shoulders stiffened, "Fame, mostly. Conquering death. It's a nice starting point."

"Don't lie, arsehole. You need a test subject," she snarled.

He scowled openly now. "And you're running out of options," he bit back. "Your brother's going to die one of these days and you're going to wish you were ready. You _need_ me."

"Sounds like you need me more."

"Well that's always been the case, Rosie."

If she faltered a bit at this, she did a good job not showing it. She was far too pissed to acknowledge the sudden tenderness in his tone. He had crossed a line. This time she wouldn't forgive him. This time she meant it.

X

X

X

"The funeral of Harry J. Potter, Ronald B. Weasley, and Hermione J. Weasley took place the summer after your Fourth and last year of schooling," I read off my notes, "It was a fire wasn't it?"

"That was the official story," Rose replied vaguely.

"So you and Albus didn't believe it."

She scoffed, "We knew our parents, Mr. Walker. Do you think the Golden Trio, who vanquished the _Dark Lord_ , could just die in a simple fire? Something was obviously off, and of course the how didn't matter as much as the _why._ "

X

X

X

Albus let his older brother manage their mum. James had a soft sincerity that he couldn't replicate. Instead, he held inconsolable Lily until she fell asleep and then carried her to bed.

Now he sat quietly in the living room observing the crackling fire, a growing heaviness in his chest. He couldn't explain what it was; only that it felt like his lungs had been punctured.

His father was dead.

 _People die._

But— this wasn't anyone they were talking about. Harry Potter wasn't _people_ … sometimes Albus didn't even think he was human. How could he drop at the simple turn of fate? It was too sudden, too chaotic, too unexpected. The laws of nature did not apply to his _father_.

Something was wrong.

His older brother was crying. He knew he should've cried too — to keep up appearances if anything. But there was weakness in the tears, the running nose, the quivering lip. It felt…. _disgusting._ He had not cried in a long, long time, and could not find it in him to remember how. Surely, his father would be ashamed of such a useless reaction. His father had always told him to control his emotions.

He decided then.

He wouldn't cry. He _refused_.

But, for the first time in a long time, he couldn't understand what he was feeling. His hands were shaking, but how he felt did not match how he _should've._ What was the matter with him? What was this?

His fists coil tight. Anger—no, rage _burned_ in his throat. He had done what he was supposed to, hadn't he? He had been exactly who his father wanted him to. He had endured every lesson, every magical training session imposed upon him, as obediently as any son could. He had _worshiped_ the man. He had repressed every doubt, every flicker of fear, and for what? What had been the point of it all?

With his father dead, what was the point?

"Albus?" A small, feminine voice spoke his name.

It was Rose. Her eyes were swollen from crying. She sunk down beside him and for a few minutes there were no words as she silently sobbed into his shoulder, and he squeezed her hand. But even she may have been able to see that there was something different in him that day; he had the same objective stare, but there was a tired, hollow quality in the eyes, one she'd easily mistake for grief. It would take her years to figure out its true manifest.

"We don't have to talk about it, Al."

"You clearly want to."

There was silence.

"Only if you do too."

He bit his lip, as if struggling against something. "You can sense what's wrong here, can't you?" he said.

Her head dropped and then she was too busy sobbing into his shoulder again to pay his words any attention. "They're dead—they left us, _me_ , all alone," she whimpered. "And Hugo's just getting sicker—I don't know what to do—"

"You'll be fine," he said curtly, his hand efficiently patting her head. "You're clever. All you have to do is marry rich, by that I mean Malfoy, and you'll be set."

It was such a stupid, absurd thing to say that she nearly bleated out in laughter. Then more tears built in her eyes. She wasn't even remotely thinking about herself. Her life was falling apart at the seams, but her mum and dad had told her, _always told her_ , to look after her brother. "He's counting on you," Dad would say, but it always seemed as if she was the one that needed Hugo more.

"What about you?" she whispered, sniffling, glancing up at Albus.

He gave a stony, nonchalant shrug, staring into the flames of the meager hearth.

She frowned tearfully.

"Say something emotional," she snapped at him. "Your dad just died, you prick."

His mouth twisted oddly. He looked at her. "Do… you think there's hope?" he spoke in a strange murmur.

"I don't understand."

"If I told you I was happy my dad was dead, even relieved, would you think there was hope? For me?"

Rose stared. She blinked, horrified.

Her hand rose, quivering, infuriated. With a resounding _smack!,_ she had slapped him hard across the face. The gesture was so unexpectedly violent that, for a moment, all either could do was stare at the other in alarm.

"How could you—you don't mean that! This isn't the time for jokes!" she seethed, "Damn you, Albus! Damn you! You loved your dad! We all did!"

"You don't _know_ what he did to me!" he growled back, clutching his injured face.

He watched in dismay as she stood up and took a step back, her shoulders quivering—maybe she had at last seen him for what he was. The unhinging fault in the essence of his character. The growing speck of darkness in the pool of white. But then her hand was clasped over her widening mouth, and she uttered a shaky apology. Despite what he had said, she couldn't believe she had hurt him.

" _Merlin_ … I'm s-so sorry, Al. I didn't mean-"

"It's fine." His voice was cold, blunted, unforgiving; To compensate, he stood and stepped toward her, pressing the perfunctory kiss into her forehead. "Goodnight, Rose."

As he went upstairs to his room, Rose tried not to follow him. She wanted to tell him that no matter what they would be family, so she would always love him. She would even admit she considered him her brother. He was already her closest friend. But such endearing words weren't easy to say to someone like Albus.

There was no guarantee he _could_ return them.

" _Al…_ " Her voice was barely above a whisper. He turned around, regarding her with his characteristic coldness. She summoned the courage to speak her mind, to say what had been on there for a while.

"I've changed my mind. Show me those notes on the resurrection stone."

X

X

X

 **Note:** **The whole point of Mr. Walker finding Al's pensieve is to show that there are two accounts running side by side, between which everything is encompassed. The story isn't limited to Rose's perspective (or Albus' for that matter). We'll work with a third person omniscient that randomly decides to focus in whoever's important at the time.**

 **Edits made 3/27/2019**


	3. Rupture

The only thing separating me from Rose were the bars.

I had moved my chair closer until we were become nothing less than chatting acquaintances out for tea in the afternoon (though she could only move so far with the chains around her ankles). Her congenial manner may have drawn me in, but it was her voice—rich and crackling with emotion—that kept me firmly attached to my chair.

"Why did you change your mind?"

"Desperation, Mr. Walker, has been the source of most of my mistakes as you will see. Though certainly not all...Tell me this— with your parents dead and brother dying, wouldn't you feel the world had betrayed you? Wouldn't you want to right the wrongs inflicted in your life?"

"I suppose I would."

"There is no _supposing_ here. You see it is all relative. Wrong and right. Good and evil. Dark magic and light magic and blue magic and purple magic—none of it makes any damn difference. Everything that happened, every precise death, every failure, every miscalculation up until the war, was inevitable from the beginning," she said with conviction. "You'll see, Mr. Walker, there was only one way any of this could've ended, and that is with me sitting here speaking with you."

X

X

X

They threw themselves into research with a zeal unlike before, one that crossed from order into obsession—eager to outdo the other. Strange moments of unity, however fleeting and unstable, that Rose would admit she enjoyed.

Recently washed cauldrons were placed upturned on work tables, alongside jars and bottles of miscellaneous items. Toadstools, nettles, Pig bladders, cow eyes, assorted herbs and enchanted waters. Reference books lay haphazardly open all over the floor. And in the midst of it was a boiling cauldron, flowing from the rim while the surrounding fluids were carelessly cleaned by charmed mops.

"Al…we need fewer asphodel leaves. The poison can be lethal in large doses—"

"There won't be a large dose," he said, an irritable note in his voice, busy picking out all the toadstools with decent spores. He dropped a handful into the cauldron, stirring clockwise twice, then counterclockwise until a vat of green formed. "And besides, we'll counteract it with the flobberworms— _not those, idiot_ , the minced ones by the wormwood."

Rose fumed, emptying a handful of flobberworms into the cauldron.

"If you read ever Phyllid Spore like you were supposed to, you'd know it would take a wagonload of these damned things to counter the asphodel poison," she said, with a snort. "…pompous arse."

"Spore was a fool who didn't know his grundywood from his gillyweed," he jibed back, eyes glued to a book. "And knowing more than you doesn't make me a pompous arse. It just makes me—" the corner of his mouth tilted upwards "— _better_."

She stared down his smugness with a petulant look.

"If you're so much better than me, then why do you need my help?"

"In retrospect, I'd say you need _my_ help."

"When have I ever needed you, arsehole?"

"More name calling? You're just trying to hurt my feelings now."

"Maybe if you _had_ feelings."

At this, the boy turned his back at her to silently chop the geranium roots. He spoke calmly, several moments later, through the methodical swishing of the knife.

"You're right, I don't really need you. I guess it's more of a preference."

She stared at the back of him. Her cousin had his oddities, but nothing was as strange as how he singled her out, like she was special or different.

She opened her mouth, then closed it. "What does that mean, preference?"

He glanced over his shoulder, his eyes sweeping over the anxiety on her face.

"No need to overthink it, idiot," he scoffed, turning back around. "It means you're good labor. Now get back to work."

Albus was a better, stronger, smarter wizard than her, and she knew that. She envied him. Natural ability made him conceited, creating hostile tension between them. Still though, she knew Albus couldn't deny that she was close behind him in every regard. Closest anyone ever got to him, especially in potion-making where even Slughorn proclaimed they were neck to neck. She liked to think she was close in other ways, as well.

At any rate, this working together business was mutually advantageous. They could bounce ideas off one another, practicing and planning, screwing up heedlessly and then reverting back to the idea board. At the same time competing and yet foolishly trying to impress one another. Rose read _Secrets of the Darkest Art_ in a week. Albus read all the works of Argo Pyrites. Albus woke up at four to resume working. Rose stayed up all night testing enchantments and potion combinations. Rose found all herbs possibly related to resurrection. Albus surprised her with a rare vial of phoenix blood.

"How did you find _that_?"

He merely shook his head, "Unnecessary details. But do you know what's so fascinating about a phoenix?"

"Well, it regenerates almost instantly when it dies."

"Aside from that Rose Pose, it is the _only_ creature in existence to be able to do so."

"Lot good that's done it," she scoffed. The past thirty years had reduced the phoenix population to under a hundred. The more powerful its magical healing properties were discovered to be, the more people savagely sought it.

Albus held the vial between his thumb and forefinger, studying it circumspectly. "The only creature in the world with the power to immortality… on the verge of dying out. Funny how things work out, isn't it?"

X

X

X

Following her parents' deaths, Rose lived with the Potters—all of which, as it seemed, had begun to crumble. Ginny, long-faced and sallow skinned, had turned to whiskey while James, in order to cope with his missing father figure, developed a new-found love for authority. Lily erupted in fits of anger and ran away once a week—only to be found camped at a friend's place and the occasional disgusting boyfriend's. James and Lily argued. James and Ginny argued. The only person James didn't yell at was Albus, who was careful never to do anything wrong. Never to get caught, anyway.

Hugo remained at the hospital growing precariously feebler by the day. Rose would visit him often.

Having awoken from a nap, a grin flitted across his face as she stepped through the doorway.

"I brought you something."

"You didn't have to."

"Oh hush."

She dropped a badly wrapped package into his lap and threw her arms around his neck, leaning in to kiss his cheek, "Happy Birthday."

The recently turned thirteen-year old rubbed the sappy display of affection from his face (Rose was always out to embarrass him. What if one of the healers saw?) and then turned his attention to the present.

"Guess you didn't have wrapping paper at the house, eh Rosie?"

"Or tape. Or scissors."

"Or aesthetic talent," he teased.

The ends of her lips curved as she playfully shoved him. "Open it already."

Hugo took a long time contemplating the strange package. He held it close to his ear, rattled it, threw it in the air, even smelled it. I bet it's one of those pie-in-the-face machine thingies, right? Bet you've got a timer on it. You'd do that. Or, oh, oh! It's a pygmy puff, isn't it? _It's not a pygmy puff, Hugo._ Better not be. It better not be underwear either. If it's underwear I'm not opening it. _Do I look like Nana Molly to you?_ I give up…is it edible? _Yes, Hugo it's an edible pygmy puff in a pair of underpants ready to splatter you in the face with pie._ Sweet Merlin, that's brilliant—how did you know I wanted that?

He plowed through the bad wrapping and unraveled a box of chocolates, along with the Chudley Cannon's hat he'd been wanting for a while. Glancing up, he feigned disappointment.

"Damn. I thought you were serious about the pygmy puff."

She took the hat and yanked it on his head, brushing his hair out of his eyes. Her hand lingered for a moment on his face. Hugo was weak and scrawny-looking, with large blue eyes and soft babyish features. He had long lashes, brown unmanageable curls like their mother, and a permanent expression of bewilderment etched on his face. Despite all that, there was a weighing sadness in his character—the countless pain potions, the bedridden lifetime, the ticking clock—that became prominent when he stopped smiling. Though her brother was good at pretending for her sake.

She would kiss his forehead and kiss his face countless times, and she would hold him tightly, and sometimes when she fell asleep next to him on the cot he could hear her wracking sobs, reliving their parents' deaths. Her arm would circle around his waist tightly, squeezing past the point of comfort, and she would make absurd promises about never letting anything happen to him.

He had no clue the lengths his sister would go to keep him alive.

X

X

X

The problem with testing a concoction intended for ressurection was an obvious one: finding a dead test subject.

Rose stood tentatively holding her wand toward a mass of abnormally large spiders, her face pinched.

"I can't, Al."

"You can," he murmured at her ear, from behind. "Everyone's killed spiders."

"This is different. I've never….I can't."

"It's easy." His hand wrapped hers over her wand, more gripping than reassuring. "No blood, no pain...some might say it's a more merciful death…now just relax and—"

"Let go," she croaked. Dabbling in dark magic was one thing but using the Unforgivables was a step too far, even for her.

"They're _spiders_ , Rose. No one's committing mass murder here," he said, with an air of impatience. "Potion testing will go much faster if you learn to do these things."

"I don't see why you can't just do it."

"Because it's too damn easy."

"Oh shut up."

"You shut up. Now stop acting like a coward and do it."

She yanked her arm away and spun toward him, pointing her wand at his chin.

"Don't call me a—I'm not _scared_ ," she gritted her teeth. "The difference is in choice. We're not all born with shaky morals."

He smirked. "You assume I was born with any."

"Be that as it may, I could use the spell if I wanted to."

"Oh, could you?" He leant in, with an alarmingly friendly smile. "And there's _nothing_ I can do to, um, entice you into giving a little demonstration?"

Her fingers extended cautiously outwards to his chest, keeping him at bay.

"No tricks," she warned, taking a careful step back. "They don't work on me—" he scoffed "—they _don't_ ," she pressed on. "And besides, I've never thought of you as all that charming, based solely on the fact that I've known you since you were in diapers, Potter."

 _"Potter?"_

"Albus. Cousin Al. Whatever," she sighed. "My point is, I already know what you're like, so it just doesn't work on me. I know you're a bastard, so I'm immune."

"Quite the ego Cousin Rose."

"Shut up."

"But are you sure?" he said, shifting even closer so that they were face to face, brow to brow. "I mean, how sure are you, really?" His eyes glittered in tease. He was mocking her, she knew, and in her peripheral she could see his hand inching toward the wand in his back pocket. In every practice duel they had Albus threw an unexpected first hex, _dirty trick_ , but if she kept eye contact, she could catch him.

He gave a lazy tilt of the head. "Assumptions are a dangerous thing to make. You assume you know everything about me. You assume I'm going to attack you the same way I always do. And you assume I'm as much scared of you as you are of me."

"I'm not…I'm not scared of you."

"And why not?" His eyes flashed, but the moment of anger was gone before Rose could see it. Suppressed. Discarded.

She had seen the way other kids had begun to act around Albus at school. How underclassmen would duck their heads when they walked past him. How his Slytherin posse trailed behind him, Can I get you a snack, Potter? Shall I serve your detentions? Oh, Potter, would you like me to make a complete fool of myself for your amusement? Malfoy was a more brazen being, but even he couldn't keep her cousin in check.

"Don't bother starting something," she warned. "I beat you in the last duel."

His face was a strange mix between humor and scorn, "I won't always go that easy on you."

"You weren't—"

" _Expelliarmus_."

In a flash of light he had her disarmed, her wand sent flying. As she leapt sideways to catch it he blasted her backwards with a freezing enchantment. With her body rendered immovable, she lay in utter surprise at his reflexes. Albus had never attacked with such speed before. Had he always been holding back?

She watched in dismay as he approached, blocking the last rays of the descending sun, standing so that his silhouette towered over hers.

"That wasn't fair."

He tilted his head at her.

"There you go assuming again. You see I never _intend_ to fight fair, Rose. Fairness implies that we're equal to begin with, which we're clearly not." The ends of his lips curved. "So why would I limit myself? Why shouldn't I use my intellect to outsmart you? Don't you see how _easy_ it is for me?"

"All I see is a boy with dirty tricks," she said scathingly.

"And all I see is a girl with _no_ tricks."

With a contemptuous glare, he pointed his wand sideways at the line of spiders trailing across the ground, uttering the forbidden words without any trace of emotion. _Avada Kedavra._

The following flash of green reflected in her horror-stricken eyes and instantaneously the spiders were as immoveable as her. Rose could feel the air deflate from her lungs.

The smug coldness from his gaze seemed to puncture her skin. "Now say it," he ordered. "That I'm better than you."

"You're better than me," she echoed.

Her voice was faint, lacking the conviction he had craved.

Albus felt strangely dissatisfied. In fact, he wasn't sure what had elicited such a reaction from him in the first place.

He regressed a few steps, stone-faced, as if to distance himself from her, his flesh and blood.

Why was he doing this? What was the matter with him?

Several times he blinked, watching her tremble as the freezing enchantment wore off, _just watching_ , trying to sort it all out.

Upon the sight of her tears, he quickly reverted tactics.

"I'm sorry—" He moved towards her as she stood up, instinctively as predator to prey, aware of every vital discrepancy—her panicking heart-rate, her widening eyes, the doe-eyed expression of fear, yes, _fear_ , that flitted across her impulse driven face. "I don't know why I..." He wrapped his arms around her flinching body, pulling her close. "They're just spiders. If it bothers you I won't do it again."

His fingers stroked her hair.

"…You know I couldn't even _think_ of hurting you."

His mouth grazed her forehead, lingering a hair's breadth away.

"…Progress takes risks. I had to show you what we have to do to save Hugo."

As his hands cupped her face, he held an expression of ironclad earnestness.

"…We want the same things Rose. You see that, right?"

He could see the myriad of emotions flicker across her face, processing which one to settle on. Her voice came out as a plea. "How do I trust you when you're always lying to me?"

"I won't blame you if you hate me."

Now her expression would soften.

"Git," she sniffled, slapping his arm. "Don't do it again…and no, I don't hate you."

 _Of course not._

He hugged her, feeling her pulse slow, her body melt into his arms. Good. She was already caving in— her mind just didn't know it. She had forgiven him as she always did and now they would revert to normalcy, at least what _was_ normalcy for them. But this meant he would have to tread carefully in her good graces for a while, keeping himself firmly planted between trusted friend and adoring brother.

Only, this time was different for Rose, a seed had been planted in her head, sown and lain to fertilize—enrapturing her mind in a web. It was disturbing how easy it had been for him to commit such a destructive act. She told herself that webs could be cleaned, but it wasn't about just the spiders. It was so much more than just spiders.

It had been easy to forgive him. Rose always forgave him. But forgetting was dangerous.

A part of her had held out, because until then she had considered them one of the same. An equal, with a shared and mutually tortured childhood. Albus knew of her pain, whether or not he truly understood it. And though Rose may not have known what had happened between him and his father, she still gave him an _enormous_ amount of leeway for it. He was an arrogant and distrustful arse, but so tantalizingly close to a sibling she had not been able to see him as anything otherwise.

Until now

When their potion didn't work, Rose detached herself from Albus, unknowing to him, and resumed a private line of inquiry. She reverted towards the fundamentals of spell-making, Ancient Runes and Latin texts, the sort of things that were so engraved in the process that people hardly gave them a second thought. The philosophy behind a spell was that it was based on the principle of _something_ , for _something_. Every action, manipulation of condition, would affect universal sphere of energy. Some spells could be personalized. For instance, the Unforgivables—the Cruciatis curse, the torturing spell, required a significant amount of malicious energy and evil intent on the user's part, without which the spell fell flat. The Imperius curse took the will of the person inflicted upon: a sacrifice, and in turn, gave control. And of course, the killing curse reflected the most fundamental principle of sacrifice—you took a life in exchange for the person's death.

Following torturous weeks of research, she deduced a frightening yet plausible method to reverse the principle of death, but it was crass, risky, and not testable on spiders in the slightest. It would take a catalyst source of energy to jumpstart, lightning perhaps. She would wait for a thunderstorm, take her brother off the oxygen tanks and out to the woods, and of course, not give any indication to her _dear cousin_ that she had figured it out. She had figured out the secret of ressurection but at a price—and there was danger in such knowledge.

X

X

X

 _Prophet Headline: Fifteen-Year Old Prodigy Revives Dead Brother Using New Dark Magic_

Bloodshot eyes glazed the headline, the corners of his mouth twitching. The handsome features were so etched so tightly that Albus looked unnatural. Anger radiated from his essence as his photographic memory scanned every instance for a hint, _any hint_ , of such a cold betrayal.

No one was given the chance to betray Albus. He betrayed them first. He destroyed anyone who even gave him a whiff of duplicity. But Rose, who he been willing to share information with, work with—he had been _lenient_ with her. He had allowed her close. He was soft-tempered, and patient, and brotherly. He did not know why this was so.

All he knew now was that it had been a mistake.

Suddenly, the silence was too much in the room and he slammed his fists on the side table, knocking over papers, breaking glass, and startling his owl, Dudley. He howled alongside the owl as the sharp edges penetrated the flesh of his hand.

While he tended to them, the insolent, repulsive creature began making noise, ruffling its feathers and rattling against the cage. Albus violently grabbed the owl by the neck and shoved it out the window.

"Get out!" he snapped, slamming the window shut.

X

X

X

 _Rose,_

 _What happened? Are you ok? How's Hugo?_

 _-Al_

 _Rose,_

 _How did it happen? What did you do?_

 _-Al_

Prophet Headline: Fifteen-year old Prodigy Facing Time in Azkaban

 _Rose,_

 _Missing you a lot these days. Talk to me._

 _-Al_

 _Rose,_

 _I'm worried about you._

 _-Al_

Prophet Headline: Head Auror Adopts Fifteen-Year Old Prodigy, Refuses Interviews

 _Rose,_

 _I want to talk. Let's meet._

 _-Al_

 _Rose,_

 _Damn it. Don't do this. Talk to me._

 _-Al_

 _Rose,_

 _We're better than this._

 _-Al_

"So, no reply huh?"

Albus scowled over at Scorpius, who had been snooping over his shoulder a moment prior and now stood on the other side of the room, casually glancing through his other letters.

"Howler, howler, howler –Fucking hell, _Potter_ , how many people did you piss off this week?"

Albus didn't bat an eyelid. "Put all the letters from my mum in the bin."

The shrieking red tapered letters were difficult to dispose of, requiring an extensive number of anti-opening jinxes, but Scorpius managed to get rid of them all. He shoved them into a metal container, kicking the lid shut, and then turned to his best mate. The unresolved curiosity in the room was stifling.

"So, speaking of your cousin—"

"I don't believe we were," Albus droned.

"—is she ok or not?"

He glanced up to meet a startlingly solemn expression on Scorp's face.

"You seem awfully concerned." His tone became one of amused suspicion. "Is something the matter?"

"I'm indifferently curious."

"You can't be both."

Scorpius avoided his wry half-grin for a brief moment, studying the drapes.

"No way what she's going through is easy. Aren't you worried about her too?"

"I'm her cousin. I have to be."

"Bullshit. You're not sentimental about family, _Potter_ ," came the usual sneer.

"And you're not sentimental about Rose, _Malfoy_ , but here we are now, having this rather uninteresting discussion."

Scorpius glared at him, though more out habit than anything. Albus gave a disaffected yawn, observing at the color shading the blond's face that was not from anger.

Shuffling along their dormitory, Albus fell onto his bed with a loud yawn, keeping his tone casual and even. "Rose Pose has frequent periods of intense Albus-hatred. It makes her all the more emotional for when she forgives me," he said, eyeing the other boy amusedly. "She doesn't want to see me, not at the moment, at least. But she said nothing about _you_."

"It's usually in the subtext." Scorpius looked uncomfortable. "And anyway, it would just be awkward without you… She'll kick me. She'll throw things at me."

A low chuckle. "It's not as if you deserve anything less."

"Maybe my expectations have changed."

There was a pause.

"Since when?" Albus inquired, brows raised.

"A year."

"She's been gone for a year."

"Well maybe two years… Don't look at me like that, Potter. I don't have to explain myself to _you_."

"You most certainly do not."

"You're mocking me."

"I most certainly am not." The corners of his mouth twitched. "I'm sure Rose has many attractive qualities underneath the mainly unattractive ones. So what is it? Can't be her plain-jane eyes—is it the hair? Or the way she yells at you? Does it stroke your—"

" _Stop that._ "

"My, my, you're blushing. I didn't know Malfoys could do anything besides sneer."

"You're the worst person in humanity."

Albus gave him a sly look. "You have my permission."

"I wasn't asking for your permission, _Potter._ "

"Yes you were, why else would you bring it up?"

Another pause.

"So what do you think, then?" Scorpius was looking at him, a half-eaten, awkward look on his face. It was more than a question, it was demanding a prediction. No one in the world knew Rose better than Albus. Likewise, no one knew Scorpius better than Albus. "I mean…I'm not exactly her favorite person."

And the good thing about Scorpius was that he didn't keep secrets.

"You could be."

X

X

X

Rose lied in the vicinity of her new room, not sleeping but thinking, all the while ignoring the two house elves yelling outside the door. Adjusting to her new life had been tumultuous and physically straining.

 _The Head stared callously down at her. "Get up Weasley. I didn't order you to stop running."_

 _"I… can't," she gasped, lying with her cheek against the cold, hard cement as tears of exhaustion rolled down her face. He walked over and pressed down on her limp hand until she cried out in pain._

 _"Stop… Stop."_

 _Her pleas were weak and her eyes were beginning to close. Inconsiderate was the word that came to mind. The Head was entirely inconsiderate to her age, her gender, the fact it'd only been two months since she'd recovered the strength to walk again. He pinned her against men twice her age in battles. He made her train entire nights. He countered her complaining by taking away food and sleep privileges. The worst thing after a long run was another long run._

 _"Just five minutes…"_

 _"I told you that you'd have to go through the same training as the rest of my men, which means no special treatment." He kicked her legs, "Don't whimper like that—It only means I have to push you twice as hard from now on."_

 _Rose stood up, her knees wobbling dangerously._

 _"Run," he instructed, shoving her so that she staggered a bit but maintained her balance. Using her hands to level herself, she narrowed her eyes on the shadowy silhouettes running ahead of her so her head would stop spinning and she could see straight. Then she began to move. He told her this training would build discipline, something she was apparently very much in need of. "Magic is entirely useless to a wizard who cannot even stand the test of endurance." He informed her again. "This is a lesson you will carry with you the rest of your life. The willingness to move forward is the only thing that can save you now."_

 _After the physical training came the magical one. Sadly, it wasn't much better._

 _"Bombarda… Confundo….Defodia…" The Head shot spell after spell at her from the tip of his wand, barely even flexing an inch. On Rose's part, there was more physical movement involved—mostly running to avoid being pulverized._

 _She cursed as the hex hit her straight in the chest._

 _"Weasley! For the love of Merlin, use your wand!"_

 _Despite frantic efforts to grip her wand, Rose watched in dismay as it slipped through her shaking hands. As she snapped to get it, the Head attacked. "No, no, no— Everte Statum!"_

 _She was blasted full force into a tree, hitting the back of her head and sliding onto the ground._

 _"Focus! You mustn't let your fear distract you!"_

 _She groaned, rubbing her head, and stood up again._

 _"Fix your stance!"_

 _She bent her knees, stretching her right leg out in front so that her torso would stay straight and level. "Protego!" Charm after charm shot out the tip of her wand to block her trainer's hexes, yet they grew feebler with each try. Damn it—her hands felt slippery again. Her head was spinning; she felt slow, disoriented, easily distracted. All the confidence she'd had in her abilities began to wane. All those potions and dueling awards, her arse. It didn't mean a thing in the real world._

 _"Expulso!"_

 _The giant explosion blew her backwards and she fell rolling, eventually to land face down on the ground. A strange tingling sensation passed down the middle of her face. She lifted her head to touch her nose, and upon realizing it was broken, let out a loud moan. Hot fresh tears emerged in her eyes. She bit her cracked lips, hard until they bled, in order to stop the dry sobs rising up her throat._

 _"Bloody hell— are you crying, Weasley?" There was amusement in his tone, but only there to mask the utter surprise. He had grown accustomed to pushing her beyond her abilities without too much resistance (aside from the occasional swear word). He had meant to break her defiance. He just never knew it would be this hard to watch a small girl cry. She said something in a garbled voice which he didn't catch._

 _"Pardon?"_

 _She wept, her voice breaking. "I can't…I shouldn't have to—"_

 _"Don't give me that," he grumbled, his face reddening. Guilt was not an emotion he would feed. Grabbing her roughly by the arm, he pulled her off the ground and held her by the shoulders. "You don't have the luxury to wear the face of a victim, Weasley." He said sternly, "Delicate flowers die in the cold—you have to be a weed. You don't get to feel sorry for yourself and cry like this. Got it?"_

 _No response._

 _He grabbed her by her small shoulders and looked her squarely in the eyes._

 _"There's someone counting on you, Weasley."_

 _The statement reminded Rose so much of what her father had once said to her that she wanted to cry again, but she shook the notion away and lowered her gaze to the ground before it could grow into anything else. The Head would never be anything like her father. Not in a million_ years.

X

X

X

Hugo told himself that if his sister could manage Auror training, then he could manage to walk. Slowly, tentatively, he lifted himself, his hands clenching the sides of his wheelchair. The muscles of his arms vibrated as pain shot through his right leg. He had been at this for weeks now. Each day he lifted himself more, little by little, pushing himself to the edge of his capacity. His progress wasn't startling like Rose's, but composed of small, humble steps.

In this way it was also more admirable.

He fell back into his wheelchair, gasping, as his sister entered the room.

"I'm getting better," he informed her, face flushed.

"So am I."

"We're really doing this, aren't we?"

She could see the tired, brilliant grin on his face and it made her beam back with pride. There was something about his genuine smile, the fact that they were both striving for a common goal, that warmed her. She didn't have to worry about the aching burden of him dying anytime soon. Not before her, at least.

"All right. Once more."

"Nah, Rose. I'm tired-"

"Oh, come now!" She put her hands under his bony armpits and pulled him up, as one did with a small child. It was clear from his sullen-eyed expression that Hugo disliked being manhandled.

"Put your arms around my neck," she instructed. He stood an inch or two shorter than her. He made his whining face, lower lip protruding.

"This is _embarrassing_. I mean it looks like we're dancing! What if someone sees—"

"Oh don't be a ninny."

"Shut up! I'm not a ninny."

Reluctantly, he put his arms around her. Rose nodded approvingly. "Now, follow my steps."

As a single functioning unit, they moved—Hugo slowly trudging forward in an infant-like way. He kept his attention on his wavering legs, making sure to mimic her steps.

"Hey, you ever…think of Mum and Dad? If they were still here?" he asked conversationally.

Rose didn't answer for a moment. It had only been a year. The image of their bodies being carried away in caskets was still vivid in her mind.

"Not really."

"Liar." Hugo scowled and asked to be let off. Rose helped him toward his cot and sat beside him. On his bedside she could see an old photo album, open to a random page where the four of them stood smiling, dressed in the hideous reindeer sweaters Nana Molly had gifted. It was the Christmas they had gone to Munich—she was seven and Hugo was five, much before he had been diagnosed with muscular dystrophy.

"You miss them, huh."

"All the time. Don't you?"

"I can barely remember what it was like with them," Rose admitted. Her life had shifted so drastically since then she couldn't imagine it having ever been normal.

"So, I mean." Hugo stretched his neck uncomfortably. "You know that spell you used to…resurrect me. Have you ever thought about—"

"Stop."

There was a pause. His watery blue eyes searched hers in desperation.

"Why not?"

"Because. There's a reason dark magic is strictly forbidden and they were going to send me to Azkaban—"

"But—"

"No, listen…I got _lucky_." She looked at him intently. "The spell is dangerous dark magic. And dark magic always has a price. I can't _ever_ do it again, you understand? No one can."

 _Why not? What aren't you telling me?_

But Hugo let the matter drop, at least for the time being. They played a couple games of exploding snap that he won before ordering dinner. A couple more games followed, which Hugo also won, and Rose griped about him cheating and something or other. Hugo rolled his eyes and let her win once - family, after all, was about compromise. Rose talked about all the places she'd take him once he'd fully recovered. Beaches, parks, movies, arcades, swimming, quidditch matches—the list was endless. Oh hey, she said, maybe they'd go somewhere abroad, like Paris, when she'd made the money (their parents' fortune had been confiscated by Gringotts since Rose was technically a convicted felon, and Hugo was technically supposed to be dead). After they finished, Rose was picking up her things when he surprised her with some abrupt news.

"So a boy came looking for you today."

She had put on her jacket and was now pulling on her boots. "I don't know any boys."

"Tall, blond, obnoxious. Sure you don't know a Scorpius Malfoy?"

Her brow tensed. "What'd you tell him, Hugo?"

"Oh _come on_ , Rose. You should've seen his face—the way he _begged_ —"

"I can't believe you! You told him where I was staying, didn't you?"

"He just wants to talk—"

"I know what he wants and it has _Albus_ written all over it." She ran an angry hand through her hair. "He just can't stand that I'm ignoring him so he's using Malfoy. This is just another one of his tricks."

Hugo met her gaze. "You don't mean that. Albus is, well… he's special. And he's insanely brilliant too. And a little kooky. And he's the only one that's your—"

My what?" she said bitingly. "Go on, say it. My _friend_? Albus doesn't have friends. He has people he uses and then discards. There's only one thing he's after and this time he doesn't get it. I'm done with him."

Hugo rolled his eyes as she pressed a goodbye kiss to his cheek, before vanishing down the hallways.

"You always say that, Rose."


	4. Jolt

"...and today, ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to welcome another one among you." The Head spoke, hands placed on her shoulders. "Ms. Weasley, here, has finally passed her physical and magical examinations and been awarded her ranking position of Auror. She has now become your equal."

Faint clapping echoed through the room of marginally older men and women officers, faces etched in subdued glares and scowls. Only the aged Whitaker smiled at her through his brown crinkled skin. Rose had, of course, known she wouldn't be well-liked. The Head had known that too, though he felt inclined to punish her with unwanted praise. It was like rubbing salt on the wounds of hungry lions; she was a mere antelope in his twisted animal hierarchy.

When he called the meeting to end and dismissed everyone, he kept her there.

"You were late this morning, Weasley."

"I'm sorry, sir."

"Now, now, I don't want excuses! I reminded you that this was an important day and yet you neglected to listen to me."

Rose didn't bother pointing out that he had never mentioned anything of the sort.

"Not only are you now a ranking officer, Weasley, but you must behave like one. This callous attitude of yours must cease, do you hear me? I will not tolerate any tomfoolery, and neither will your colleagues. Any _whiff_ of disobedience and I will send you straight to Azkaban like you belong."

She never got tired of hearing that.

"Of course, sir."

"Now I should probably mention that your colleagues probably won't be fond of you. You are, after all, younger and haven't trained nearly as long as them. Therefore, you will tolerate any type of hazing, abuse, or harassment they inflict upon you, no matter how _humiliating or painful."_

He paused for a moment to observe her reaction. When there wasn't one, he continued, a bit more irritably:

"Your purpose here is different than theirs, Weasley. Despite your rank, you do not serve the ministry. Your missions will be different, separate, off-record. You will be alone. You will follow my orders without questioning, no matter how obscene, treacherous, or difficult they may be."

"Of course, sir."

"You will not consult the law. You will not consult your conscience. You will not consult human decency or reason. If this is too difficult for you to understand, speak your mind now."

Her pause was as quick as a deafening heartbeat.

"No, sir. I completely understand."

* * *

Rose paused.

"You look as if you have a question, Mr. Walker."

"Well, as interested as I am in hearing about your professional endeavors, I would like to know about the Scorpius character present in both yours and Mr. Potter's memoirs."

"I had meant to talk as little about him as possible."

The pained expression on her face was difficult to ignore.

"You don't have to," I murmured. "But I would like to hear it."

She gave a morose chuckle. "You don't wish to leave a dying woman any shred of privacy. You wish to bleed me out completely."

I didn't see how she could talk about the emerging war without talking about Scorpius.

"There are some that believe that Mr. Malfoy was the war."

"Scorpius was _not_ the war," she countered sharply. "Do not make the same mistake the rest of the world has. War is not a person—it cannot be confined to the actions of a single being. It is the careful accumulation of events, an ever growing _hunger_ …and there are those in this world whose cruelty will never be sated."

I pressed my mouth in a hard line, unbudgingly.

The woman gave a weary sigh.

"Very well, I shall tell you about Scorpius. I'll have to start from the beginning— the very beginning, mind you. It will take a while. I won't skip ahead to the parts you want."

"I want all the parts."

* * *

He thought, with a nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach, about how he had probably broken a dozen rules to create a port-key and sneak out from school. Scorpius was no stranger to trouble—rather, trouble loved every blond hair on his Slytherin head—but he knew getting caught would effect a punishment far beyond any other. Strange enough, he had felt no apprehension when he flooded the girl's bathrooms last year to cause a distraction, helping Albus sneak into the Chamber of Secrets, or changed the Gryffindor colors to a revolting shade of pink for the hell of it. But this of course was far beyond any childish school prank. He stood outside the Head's house, his mouth dry, his fist against the panel of the front door—risking expulsion for a _girl._

No one would be able to understand why he was doing so, least of all Scorpius himself.

The door was promptly yanked open by a man he recognized from the papers—the Head. He towered over the blond in all his menacing, scar-faced glory.

"Who the hell are you?"

"I'm… _was_ a classmate of We— _Rose_ , um, sir. May I see…"

Scorpius could hear footsteps rustling and the familiar voice calling to ask what it was. She poked her head through the doorway, freezing, eyes widening, mouth unhinging at the sight of him. They stood face to face, and Scorpius couldn't help but stare her in—a wave of relief washing over him. She was _alive_ , in the flesh, no doubt the same girl he remembered from Fourth Year.

 _She was alive_.

An entire year.

It was the same hair, same sparse freckles, same lips, same eyes, but somehow different. Less child-like. More feminine. It was the subtle things—the cinching of the waist, the softness of features, the more adult expression of rage in the eyes directed at him.

 _She was alive._

The Head observed them both disdainfully.

"You know this boy, Weasley?"

"Never seen him in my life."

Scorpius blinked, bewildered, before a scowl etched across his face. Her anger was so characteristically misplaced that he would've laughed if he wasn't pissed. He wouldn't admit that he had worried for her, spent nights contemplating what she was facing, but couldn't she see that much in his expression? Sure they weren't friends, but were they such strangers that she couldn't read how relieved he was to see her?

He observed as the Head interrogated his ward.

"Are you lying to me, Weasley?"

"Of course not, sir."

"I've told you about seeing boys. _I've told you to sever all ties with—"_

"Rose petal, don't you remember me?" Scorpius cut in. "One of your _many, many_ boyfriends from school."

Rose gaped and the Head's eyes bulged dangerously. Scorpius continued with a smirk.

"I wouldn't be surprised if the others start showing up at here soon too, with that reputation of yours. You always were a wild-"

"H-He's a compulsive liar, sir." A stammer. "You can't believe a single word that comes out his abnormally large mouth."

"I thought you said you didn't know him, girl."

She began shrinking. "I don't. I just mean…"

Rose opened and closed her mouth like a fish, bent on arguing but realized quickly resistance would prove futile. As she sulked away, the Head turned his attention toward the smirking blond.

"Damn this child raising business."

"Indeed."

"Now you better get lost before I call the authorities, boy."

"I thought you were the authorities."

"Yes I-"

The Head froze at the realization he had been outsmarted by a wry adolescent and so, finding himself at a rare lack of words, slammed the door.

But Scorpius was very wry indeed—in fact, from the moment he laid his eyes on Rose, he'd assessed the situation and come to the conclusion that there was no chance of private conversation (or anything _more_ ) until he diverted the abysmal guardian.

Having changed tactics on the spot, Scorpius would now organize his next plan of attack.

At the very same moment, Rose was crumbling into her sheets, unsure which of her emotions was more prevalent: anger or gut-wrenching surprise. She and Scorpius had always waded amongst a fine line with each other, not-quite-amiable, not-quite-hateful, not-quite- _anything_ —a no man's land—where Albus created tornadoes of tension and spite consuming them both, and that accursed _one other innuendo_ neither of them could wrap their pubescent heads around. Taunting and angry gobstone throwing followed that sort of thing, and yet all Rose could focus on was the abnormally long time she had spent trying to figure out whether the silly poems tied to the gobstones were sincere, or how Scorpius took that slag Wanda Jules to the Yule Ball when she made it so obvious she wanted him to ask _her._

Unsure—that was the word Rose would associated with Scorpius.

Followed shortly by _Albus's pet._

Sudden rapping on the window made her pulse shoot, but she forced herself calm and climbed out of bed. A familiar head of hair stood on a ladder outside her pane, a smug expression resting on his face. She glared at him wordlessly before pulling up the glass.

"It's four in the morning," she said icily.

"You said I had an abnormally large mouth. I checked and I reckon it's pretty normal sized."

"Did you hear me? I said it's four in the morning."

"I'm glad you can read time, Weasel."

"I'll push you off."

Scorpius grinned. "I'll scream, break my leg, wake your hellish guardian, and everyone on the street will wonder _why_ I'd been climbing through your window in the first place."

The threat was vicious enough to make her reconsider hers.

Hesitantly, she allowed the blond to take hold of her hand and climb in.

Rose folded her arms as he scrounged around her rather unimpressive living quarters— the single white-sheeted bed, small chest for clothes, 'HEAD AUROR for MINISTER _crossed_ DICTATOR' posters on the walls, and stack of old books in the corner.

"Nice cupboard. About as big as my bathroom at home."

"Did Albus send you?"

Scorpius shoved his hands in his pockets, as he nosily inspected her propaganda adorned walls. He twirled around toward her. " _Merlin_ , why does every conversation have to start like this? Why can't you ever say 'oh, hey Malfoy, how's it been? Gee, you're looking really handsome…did you do something different with your hair?'"

"Your hair looks nice…Did Albus send you?"

"No."

"You're lying."

He paid no heed to her accusation, sprawling out on her bed _with his shoes_ , breathing in as he closed his eyes contemplatively. Rose scratched the sensation to levitate him out the window and into the chrysanthemums. Definitely too much noise.

"I have to sleep there."

"I know. I left space for you."

Her cheeks glazed with red. "I want you to leave, Malfoy."

Scorpius opened his eyes and glanced up at her. "Do you know how many rules I broke to get here in the first place?"

"Should I be flattered? Because I don't remember asking you to come and disturb my life."

"I think you should be flattered regardless."

She nearly lost her temper on the spot.

"So what was the deal with the whole charade you pulled out there?" She seethed, " _Flower petal?!_ And in front of my boss, no less, who's now going to have me tested for blasted STDs. As if I don't have enough to— _why the hell are you grinning?"_

"Nothing, it's just-" He bit back a grin. "-I'm glad you look well, considering…you know, everything."

Her anger deflated a little.

"Thanks."

Scorpius nodded, sitting up on her bed and fumbling with the ends of his jacket. "So how's your new life?"

"It could be worse. It could be Azkaban."

"As optimistic as ever, Weasel."

Despite the sarcastic playfulness, he understood precisely what she meant. The idea had haunted him the same way it had haunted her.

He changed the subject.

"So you haven't missed much at school, though I don't reckon you're coming back with the expulsion and…things. Anyway, Filch's cat caught fire again this week. Slytherin beat Gryffindor at the last match, thanks to yours truly… Slughorn's always complaining about you being gone, now that no one can answer any of his questions."

"I'm sure Albus could."

"Well, you know what he's like. He'll never give fatso the satisfaction…though he does miss you, err, Albus that is." The last half of his comment was latched on with a sloppy grin.

"I bet he told you to say that."

"That doesn't mean he's lying."

Undisputed, unavoidable reality deemed Albus was always lying, but Rose didn't want to pick the argument. Malfoy's pseudo-passive, skirting-around-the-real-issue act was beginning to tire her.

"So what about you?" she asked, for the first time making contact with his grey eyes. "Are you here because he asked you to be or because you miss me?"

"Do I get a third choice?"

"Answer the question."

"Officer Weasley." The obligatory eye roll, followed up with a glib smile. "I miss your obnoxious pencil biting, yelling-at-me, potion-dumping-in-my-lap ways. I turn myself over to the Ministry because apparently that's a crime."

"I never said it was!"

"Then why are you getting so worked up about it?"

"Because you're being facetious!"

"I thought I was being flirtatious. Guess it wasn't obvious enough."

A coy smile rested on his features. It was so strange, so nerve-wracking, so _direct_ that Rose turned her attention toward the window. Her insides felt queasy.

"I think you should leave."

He got off her bed and lazily stretched out his arms. "Right." He yawned. "There's an awful Runes exam today I should probably get some notes copied for. Next time I'll come earlier so that we have more time—"

"There's not going to be a next time."

The face flickered, startled, and the playfulness tired. The ends of his mouth curved downward.

"Give me a good reason why." He stepped toward her, scowling. "Not that I don't think you have one, or several. And they're all probably justified in some annoying way."

She observed his distance. "You wouldn't understand."

But Scorpius didn't want to deal with excuses. The passing year had made his insides ache, and he wasn't sure he could bring himself to care about the whole 'I'll get in trouble' or 'I don't want to see you' or 'my life's too complicated' tirade. They were no longer school children with multiple opportunities at each other, the time for pretending otherwise had long started to fade. The world was tilting in an ugly direction—his window with Rose would soon close.

"Till next time, Weasel." He leaned in to brush his lips against her cheek.

Within seconds he was back on the ladder outside the window, out of her sight.

* * *

Shadows reflected over the symmetrical rows of tombstones as the sun dunked into the horizon. His father's was rectangular and cut from stone far larger and thicker than any of the others—a monument-like testament to his heroism. Albus observed the engraving on the front with indifference.

 _R.I.P  
Harry J. Potter  
1980-2021  
Beloved Hero, Friend, Husband  
Father_

The last one had been carved in by James, latched on like an afterthought. Confronting the dead parent now did not give Albus the sort of resolution it had given his siblings—the moments _they_ had shared were not quite so pleasant.

For the past couple years he had frantically scrambled to revive it from his otherwise photographic memory, every instance, every lesson with his father in order to justify his hatred. It came in fragments in the dead of night— the cold sweat on his forehead, the hardness of the ground, the pangs of pain shooting through his middle as the result of his father's conditioning— but in the end, he couldn't save it all.

 _"Crucio."_

The convulsions, the fatigue, the extraordinary amount of willpower his seven-year old self summoned to keep his mouth from screaming while his body felt as if it was tearing itself to pieces— but most importantly, mixed with soreness afterwards, it was the indescribable pleasure of meeting his father's approval.

 _"Now, son, remember that this pain is nothing but a mind trick. The ultimate manipulation of this curse, you see, rests in the recipient. Rather than deflect, I want you to control your emotions, make your hardness your strength, never allow for doubt to invade the security of your mind, and you will be stronger, much stronger, than anyone else."_

Slowly he had learned to love it, the sadism, the torture, the taste of success, disguised in bitterness and blood, that marked his endurance. His mind repressed the worst of it, but all that he remembered he found to be indefinitely useful.

 _"And if you find someday that you cannot trust in me, trust in my teachings, and most importantly, trust in what you know…you know that I love you more than anything, Albus."_

"I know, Dad." His voice would echo, like a broken recording.

Everything became so much easier once you stopped feeling.

* * *

Scorpius woke up at least twice a week, to watch the silhouette hunched over in the bed across from his, forehead covered in sweat, face contorted in fear, gasping as though he was being drowned. Sheets crumpled to the ground as nightmares plagued his friend.

Friend was a strange word to use for Potter, who dismissed any notion of such attachment as frivolous, superficial, and crippling. From day one, Potter had been upfront with Scorpius that he had no use for the word _friend_.

But Scorpius continued using it.

His night terrors worsened and the dark-haired boy slid off his bed, landing on the ground with a loud painful thud. Previous incidents would compel Scorpius to shoot out of his own bed and help, but such compassion was often resisted with a _Piss off, Malfoy. I'm fine_. Therefore, when Potter woke up from his frightful nightmares, gasping for air, wide-eyed, stone-faced, Scorpius would pretend to be asleep. Oftentimes, Potter would pretend to believe him.

This was not one of those times.

"I know you're awake."

Scorpius opened an eyelid, watching as his friend sauntered to the bathroom sink, a drowsy heaviness in his step. Acknowledgement meant it had been a particularly horrifying night. Of course Potter never told him what the nightmares were about, and the blond didn't intrude by asking. His friend's demons were his alone to battle, just as they had always been.

Potter made it clear that he didn't need help. That he didn't need anyone.

Scorpius stood by the door pane, watching as the dark-haired boy splashed cold water on his face, the cold porcelain features so distraught they looked fragile.

"Check the doors, Scorp."

"I did... they're locked."

"And the windows?"

"I checked everything."

"You promise?"

A childish query, but one that Scorpius would answer whole-heartedly, grinning.

"Always, _Potter_."

"You won't tell anyone about this." Albus coughed violently into the bowl. "You hear me? You won't speak a word—"

"Yes, yes, I know the drill. You'll destroy me. You'll ruin my life. You'll murder my unborn child - honestly Potter I keep your secrets for the asking. You don't have to threaten me _every time_." Scorpius often wondered whether Albus didn't understand the concept of trust, or whether he just preferred aggressive bullying.

"We're not _friends_ , Malfoy. Get that through your thick head now." He spat, glaring at him through the mirror.

"I never said we were."

"Then don't _act_ as if…as if—" He subsided into a coughing fit more severe than earlier. Scorpius sighed, his eyes weary, his shoulders descending…it would be a long night indeed if his friend insisted on being so stubborn.

"You sound like shit, Potter. go lay down. I'll get some tea from the elves."

"I didn't _ask_ for—"

"Will you just shut up and do as I say?!" Scorpius glared at Potter, whose brows drew up. He had not been expecting such ferocious insolence.

"You don't speak to me like that."

"I apologize profusely, _master._ There, is that better?"

Potter tightened his jaw, surveying him coldly. "Earl Grey."

"Yes, yes, I know." Scorpius muttered, hands in his pockets as he stalked out the doorway.

Passing swiftly through the halls and avoiding the prefect routes, he arrived in the kitchens where various house elves were busy toiling away for the next day. He only had to say two words.

"Potter's favorite."

The house elves were fond of Potter, not because he was kind, nor caring to fake it, but because he had helped them arrange a strike for better wages the year prior (which had resulted, as deliberately planned, with the Gryffindor common room in shambles). Obviously Albus hadn't done it out of some understanding of their plight, or _Merlin forbid_ , because he actually had a heart underneath his shell of ice. It was more or less to test his powers of control against the Head Boy last year—a disdainful Gryffindor who often awarded him with detention. For some reason or other, Potter was always trying to see how far he could pit things.

Normally Scorpius enjoyed the intrusive thrill this created in his otherwise conventional life, but occasionally, he had to wonder what went through his friend's head.

With Albus Potter, you could never be sure of anything.

* * *

"Anthony Rimbaud." The Head stated, passing her over a file. "32. Widowed. Head of the International Magical office of Law. Pureblood aristocracy. Previous affiliation with renegade underground movements. Attends the Minister's tea parties. A dangerous enemy that can be turned to a vital ally if you play your cards right."

Rose glanced through the file.

"And you want me… to convince him?"

"No."

"Kidnap him?"

"No."

"Seduce him?" The very thought made her stomach turn.

"Heavens no, Weasley. My house-elves are more sophisticated in the art of seduction than you. Your task is much simpler. Rimbaud is in the possession of a rare, very valuable basilisk egg that I would like. Naturally, would I to end up with such a blackmail worthy possession, I could not only place his entire career in jeopardy, but the nature of his underground work."

"So theft, then."

"I expect it won't be too difficult." He said tonelessly, surveying his fingernails.

"Probably not, sir."

"Excellent." He stood up and walked over to his fireplace. "Now come along, I need to collect a delivery from my contact in the markets."

Rose hadn't been out in wizard streets since the incident with her brother. It was always through the use of floo powder that she traveled from the Head's estate to the Ministry to the training ground and to the hospital to see her brother, where the staff had been instructed to keep her presence secret. The Head didn't allow her to read newspapers or talk with reporters—he said the aftermath didn't concern her, that she had caused enough trouble in the world without needing it relayed it back to her, and she didn't argue.

Rose had been living in a bubble until she stepped ashen foot into what looked like Knockturn alley, with its leaky streets, dampened shadows, and promise of secrecy. Hoods draped over their faces, she followed the quick-footed Head as they cut seamlessly through the masses of people, shifting shoulders and avoiding eye-contact. Unexpectedly the Head side-stepped into a questionable looking shop to the left, and Rose followed suit.

"Close the door behind you, girl." A raspy voice spoke, hunched, disturbingly deformed figure slinking out of the shadows, "Vincent, if it isn't my favorite customer. What shall I get you today? Perhaps a jar of goblin eyes?"

"We're on Ministry business, Toad." The Head spoke curtly but the hunched man's attention had been diverted toward Rose. He vanished into thin air and popped up unnervingly close in front of her, leering at her with abnormally large eyes. Rose struggled not to whimper as he traced his malformed hand across her face.

"What an interesting specimen you've collected, Vincent. So soft, so _supple_ —"

"Observe your place, Toad." The Head spoke sharply, "Rose Weasley is a ranking officer and you will treat her with respect. From this point on she will serve as my messenger in Diagon Alley."

Her eyes shot open. _Diagon Alley?_

"My apologies, _Rose Weasley_ " The man hissed, retracting his hand. Turning around he shot a steady glare at the Head. "You intend to bring her here and set her loose in a field of dogs, Vincent. I certainly hope power has not blinded you and made you _stupid_. You have seen the streets as they are, the world as it is."

"I am every wary of my actions." The Head eyes gleamed as he turned his attention toward Rose. "Wait outside until my business here is done, and do not speak with anyone. Do not make it known that you are here."

She nodded, speechless, her mouth turning dry as she stepped outside. Her heart plummeted with the realization that the streets in which she stood, grey and solemn and bustling with fearsome faces—was _Diagon_ alley.

Just what had happened in the past year?

Shops darkened from the inside, trash littered the streets; an unspoken presence of fear harbored every startled pair of eyes she accidentally came into contact with. People scoured past her in the alley, careful never to linger anywhere too long— Rose made herself blend instantaneously. It was the rare but self-preserving quality about her that even the Head often remarked on.

Disregarding the tell-all Weasley hair, there was absolutely nothing distinctive about Rose. Her eyes the unremarkable color of mud, her facial features not unappealing but easily forgettable— sparsely powdered with freckles—and her body standard and lean. Unlike Albus, with his striking good looks and always towering presence, who was able to turn heads simply upon entering a room—Rose faded into the background. She could morph through any group of people, shifting and passing seamlessly through conversations and facades and attitudes. Clothes changed, and she transformed from scared-shitless adolescent to respectable authority figure to blank face in the crowd.

Albus would fool the world with his charm and wit, but Rose was the true Impressionist.

Someday, she'd even fool herself.

But a fatal mistake would occur that day, shattering the essence of her disguise and causing the second most devastating accident of her life. It would occur in five steps. First, a distraction—Rose paused gazing at the barred shops. Second, the irrelevant man blindly pacing through from the right, late for an appointment at Gringotts to arrange for a loan for his house which – where his three children and wife lived but had no idea he'd been recently laid off – was behind payment.

Third, that moment where they bumped shoulders.

Fourth, her hood would slide inches, revealing strands of tell-all red that would instantaneously be adjusted with feverish hands. "S-Sorry." A stammered response, followed by a queer look manifest of something so obscure it could easily have been overlooked. Perhaps he remembered a picture from the Daily Prophet or perhaps he had been on the trial the day her sentence had been proclaimed or perhaps he was part of Mungo's staff and had once spotted her shifting through the hospital to see her brother. Or perhaps this man just had an impossibly sharp eye.

Fifth, the _blasted_ look of recognition, followed by a hasty step back.

"R-R-Rose W-Weasley," he sputtered, just loud enough for the person passing beside him to hear. A whisper, no, plural— _whispers_ , mumblings, traveling, interrupting, shifting with the once dead but now invigorated monster of a crowd as people one-by-one began to halt and steely, perplexed eyes hungrily searched each other. Rose could feel her heart stop pounding, falling as deathly silent as the rest of her. Her eyes traveled upward—offering a silent prayer to whoever still listened.

 _Please no…_

"She's over there!"

The beast was alive. There were screams followed by a division of movement, away and toward. Fear and desperation. The latter composed everyone who had ever lost anyone ever, everyone so tormented and broken that they would do anything, _anything_ to bring back a loved one. Her eyes widened in horror at the absolute madness unfolding. Screaming, tearing, pushing, pulling, shoving, falling, hurting, kicking, desperate to get to her, the beast was hungry and violent. They were trampling _over_ each other to get to her. Women over children. Men over women. Giant waves of bodies crashing into the next, leaving tattered figures as remains. Every man for himself, killing for the secret to life, their voices overlapping. Rose please! my daughter! my son! my father! my uncle! my husband! please, no, me first! I need help! you're the only one, please! you have to help! you have to help! you have to help!

 _You have to help._

Rose was petrified, unable to move.

A beam of light shot from the distance creating a shield between her and the masses of people plummeting toward her. A quick apparition occurred to her right, hands grabbing her by the shoulder, and the two of them were gone.

In the Head's office, Rose ended up violently thrown to the floor.

"What the hell did I tell you?!" He roared at her, "Didn't I tell you to remain inconspicuous?! Do you have any idea the mess you've caused?! Blast it!" He slammed his desk in anger, throwing off papers.

She trembled, her mouth unable to form a single coherent thought. Except one.

"A-Accid—"

"Accident?" The Head laughed spitefully. "No, Weasley, you don't get to make any more accidents. The world out there has gone mad—people are killing people because of your _accidents._ "


	5. Rattle

_The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?_

{Edgar Allan Poe}

* * *

What started out as a single minded move to save her brother had become drastically entangled in national politics. Upheaval characterized magical England, all entities (humans, goblins, giants, vampires, centaurs, etcetera) pissed that the tantalizing secret to resurrection was being kept from them. With rebellions already underway, anarchy threatened the Ministry at its front door. The name _Weasley_ had become a taboo in the Wizarding world, and coupled with _Rose_ —who was now a government commodity and under strict lockdown— capable of starting a riot.

Abandonment by family now made sense and even seemed well-deserved. Most had gone into hiding, leaving the country to protect themselves. Rose's actions put them all in danger.

People wanted to bring back loved ones with the same method she had used. Others were terrified of the whole ordeal, who thought the essence of magic had been tainted now that the worlds of living and dead had been bridged. How long before someone tried to resurrect masters of horror Grindewald and Voldemort? Other nations stood outraged England had allowed such amoral practice and uncovered the solution to death [before them], thereby putting all bilateral negotiations in danger until the secret was shared. Researchers and reporters from Bulgaria, Russia, America, France, flew to the country in an attempt to make contact—though they were deterred as the least of the Head's worries. Since the escapade in Diagon Alley, the ambiguity he had worked hard to maintain was blown.

Sure, the public was aggressive, but there were far worse groups out there.

* * *

Facing reality broke Rose, as it would anyone with a sizeable conscious.

It wasn't the screaming, no—she could endure that. Or the painful stabs of death, painting the ground blood-red, nameless faces littered along her guilt stricken conscience like forgotten dreams. Mothers, fathers, _children_ …

It was the children, damn it. Why did they all sound like Hugo?

Her wand aimed- _narrowed_ at her throat, frustrated tears leaked out the end of her eyes. She beckoned herself to obliterate her memories, or take that dark and final step into much worse.

The Head observed her pitiful struggle from the doorway.

Take a moment to think of your brother before you kill yourself, girl."

At his words, the wand slipped from her fingers and her face crumpled, no longer resembling the girl who had braved a death sentence and Auror training. She buried her head in her lap, and wretched sounds of strangled crying followed.

The Head had no patience dealing with children.

"You knew what you would cause the moment you chose to save him, Weasley. Truth is that you got what you wanted and didn't give a damn about the rest—"

"I didn't want this." Her voice was faint to her own ears.

"No one did," he said sternly. "But now the world has to live with it and so do you."

Rose kept her gaze on the ground, brow furrowed, lips tightly pressed to contain the uncertainty building inside her. He could've thrown her to the dementors and still slept easy. He could've let her slip into the masses and crumble with despair. He could've let her take that dark and final step into much worse.

"Why keep me here?" she asked, in a scared voice. "Why not send me to Azkaban?"

"You would be dead within an hour, girl."

"And why would you care?!"

"Because you don't get to take the easy way out," he snapped. and their eyes met.

For a long honest moment, man and child stared at each other.

Finally, a nod.

* * *

"The Potters were still in England." I pointed out. "Ginny and her family didn't leave until—"

"—after Hogwarts shut down."

I squirmed in my chair, having been unaware of this new bit of information.

"Was that because of you as well?"

The old woman cocked her head, a bit taken aback.

"Sorry," I said, feeling sheepish.

"History has often confused the affairs of Albus and me," she replied evenly. "Diagon Alley might've been my doing, Mr. Walker. But trust me when I say that Hogwarts was all _his_ "

* * *

 _Al,_

 _I strongly implore you to drop your ambitions concerning dark magic. You've heard what happened in Diagon Alley. Don't send any more pets after me. I am in much greater trouble than you could imagine._

 _Love, Rose_

Green-eyes hungrily scoured the contents of the letter, smug satisfaction dancing in the excited pupils. Content didn't matter, it was the tone, the desperate insertion of the affectionate closing, the frantic way the ' _L_ ' looped into the ' _o_ ', that told him what he needed to know. The tongue pressed behind his closed mouth—which had curved into his first natural, handsome, and oh so unnerving smile in _months_.

Meticulously folding the edges [he was careful not to smear the lovely script], he pocketed the letter. He planned to read it several times. Then, with a strange lightness in step, he began his preparations.

* * *

Unlike Albus, who found the event at Diagon Alley uninteresting and wholly irrelevant, Scorpius—avid follower of news and politics— was concerned: for England, for the Ministry, and on a personal level, for Rose and her little brother.

"Still moping about commoners?" came an amused chuckle-Victor Zabini, fellow Slytherin ate breakfast beside him. Scorpius grimaced and put down his utensils, his appetite waning.

"I feel nauseous."

The brunette eyed him warily. "Well you better snap out of it. It's unbecoming. And along with everything else you oppose him on, your dad won't like this attitude."

Well aware that his father loved him beyond measure, Scorpius stared stonily into the depths of his pumpkin juice.

"I've told you a thousand times that his preference doesn't concern me."

"His money should." Zabini snorted, downing another piece of french toast. "Do you _want_ to be disowned, Malfoy?"

"It'd be a novel experience."

"You're ridiculous." The pureblood dismissed him haughtily as he got up to leave. Zabini was one of those who, like Scorpius, had been born behind such high class barriers of wealth that neither war nor suffering would ever affect him. Long gone were the days of Voldemort and dark allegiances, and pureblood aristocracy- for the most part- took great measures in sheltering their new generation children. Unlike Zabini though, Scorpius wasn't content with living in his gold-plated bubble.

"Busy?"

He snapped out of his thoughts to see none other than Albus, standing over him. He looked considerably more upbeat than Scorpius was used to seeing him. Their peers scooted, with instinctive obedience, to make room for the raven-haired boy across from him.

"What?"

"Rose." He raised his brows. "Do you intend to see her again?"

"Is that a problem?"

A smirk. "Certainly not."

Scorpius angled an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Why what?"

Scorpius knew just how possessive Albus was of his cousin. Third Year he hit Barry Goldwin with a bludger just for _eyeing_ her the wrong way.

"You don't let anyone near her. Why give me permission?"

"You work with the presumption she'll actually let you near her."

"You seem confident she won't."

"I said you could be her favorite person," he clarified, reverting to his characteristic coldness. "Given her lack of options at the moment, it won't be much of a feat. That being said, she's _not_ sleeping with you."

Scorpius tried not to flush.

"Get your head out of the gutters, Potter," he muttered, taking a swig of pumpkin juice. "Honest to god, I'm just worried for her… and I know you are too."

A dismissive scoff. "Rose works like a parasite. She feeds off her shitty luck. She doesn't need my sympathy."

"I never said she's the one who needed you."

A silence fell over the table where everyone keenly tuned in to hear what the response would be. With his sharp gaze resting solely on the blond across from him, Albus lazily flicked a hand, dismissing the riff-raff at the table. Slytherins of all ages, boys and girls, ceased nosily observing and scattered away.

"Listen to me, Malfoy." Albus lowered his voice, "Diagon Alley was inevitable. At the first sign of crisis, people drop their morals and run violently thrashing into each other. I know you haven't seen a lot of it, and it's sickening, but it's _human nature_. Stop with the pity party and grow a pair."

"I don't like being patronized, _Potter_."

"And I don't like being cornered on my cousin," he interjected sharply, procuring a folded piece of parchment. Setting it on the table, he slid to the blond—marking a shift in conversation.

Scorpius regarded it lazily. "Instructions?"

"The Forbidden Forest awaits."

"Pray tell, what fruitless expedition are you sending me on _this_ time?"

Albus gave a poisonous smile.

* * *

Moonlit haze created an ethereal setting for the mansion standing overhead the hill, lavish and sinister in appearance. A figure flash-appeared into the surrounding bushes, at the carefully calculated distance just outside its protective anti-apparition shield. Mr. Rimbaud was a cautious man, and rightly so, considering his involvement in underground movements and fondness for dark artifacts. Aspiring thieves like Rose Weasley knew dozens of anti-jinxes that could result in the corrupt politician's undoing.

Rose didn't waste time overthinking—it was Albus who hyperanalyzed every movement in advance, who organized his manner and speech according to exactly what he intended to gain. Rose preferred action to words. Words could be misconstrued, falsified, manipulated—actions, on the other hand, were direct and brilliantly simple. With her mind clear and focused, she commenced her break-in.

Five doors. Three security guards trailing the grounds. The moment Guard 1 and Guard 2 came into contact, Guard 3 was within jinxing distance. She took the opportunity and knocked him down with _petrificus totalus._ Side-stepping around the frozen body, she snuck through the garden—a darkened hooded figure running headlong down the trail of azalea bushes. It took thirty seconds to unlock the door that lead into the kitchen. Twenty more to _stupefy_ the chef from behind (Rose allowed herself five extra to take a chunk out of the strawberry parfait in works). Then, her shadowed figure cut through to the empty dining area and stalked up the spiraling staircase. Second floor was darker than the first, and all the ancestral portraits—hexed silent—sent her lurking persona daggered stares. After rummaging through a couple rooms, the dark detector began whirring in her pocket—and Rose felt the surge of relief shoot through her.

The basilisk egg was close. She was almost done.

At the sound of nearby voices, Rose stopped mid- transition from room to room. The talking, amplified into yelling, came from the closed door down the hall. Letting curiosity get the best of her, she approached the door and peered through the edge.

A very strange sight beheld her. Green fumes encompassed the room but through the haze she could make out three figures standing over—a body? Dead body?

"I need more energy!" A harsh voice cackled—coming from the face of the man she'd been sent to rob. He was hunched over the body, in the midst of some ritualistic spell, "NOW!"

Energy shot out the wands of the other two figures, to Rimbaud making him contort and scream. Rose watched in horror as his twitchy fingers dropped their wand and his neck rolled around the base of his collar bone. His eyes turned over to the back of his skull. The process of power exchange had become too much. Rimbaud started yelling: "Stop! Stop!"

The figures lowered their wand and Rimbaud fell to the ground. There was sounds of moving toward the two bodies on the ground and clamoring. is he alive? is he dead? is _she_ alive? did it work?

Solemn silence confirmed that it hadn't.

Rose took a step backwards.

* * *

Scorpius dashed across the halls, his book slamming painfully against his side. The first class of the day—Advanced Potion's— and he was running late.

"Mr. Malfoy, feel free to take your seat," Slughorn advised the out-of-breath boy, as he made it in the nick of time. He fell into his normal chair beside fellow Slytherin Doblin Reed.

"Today, we shall be making Veritaserum." Slughorn commanded the class. "Before we begin, who can tell me about the properties of that particular serum?"

The normal array of hands shot up and—

"A colorless, water-like fluid that inhibits your tongue from forming ideas contrary to the presumed truth," Albus interrupted, a rare demonstration of his prowess.

Heads curiously swiveled towards him, Scorpius included.

"Lasts twenty-four hours. Undetectable in everything except citric drinks. It's said that three drops will force the drinker to reveal their darkest secrets, but in reality, two are just as effective."

"That is a very in-depth assessment, Potter," Slughorn said, perplexed. "I don't believe the textbook elaborates to that extent."

"Thank you, professor."

Scorpius could see the smug smile lift on his lips.

Once the class disbanded into ingredient gathering and potion making, Reed turned toward the blond, smirking.

"You screwed up, didn't you?"

"Not me. Balustrade," Scorpius muttered, gaze resting on the moondew sprigs. "And who else knows about it?"

"Everyone." The large-nosed boy chuckled. "Mishaps in the Forbidden Forest. Gossip of your expeditions has been traveling faster than usual."

"Keep your mouth shut and stay out of trouble, Reed."

"Potter's going to _kill_ Balustrade."

"Potter's bark is worse than his bite," Scorpius grumbled.

Reed gave him a pitiful look. "You tell yourself that. Try not to think of what happened to Alphurt last year."

Randolf Alphurt had made the mistake of revealing Albus's role in all the lethal plants that had disappeared from the Herbology gardens. Needless to say, Albus gave the boy such a severe case of Spattergroit he was sent home shortly after.

For the first half of class, Scorpius maintained a safe distance.

In potion-making, Albus was a maestro at work. His hands were still as he deposited 3 meticulous drops of bat saliva, not four, watching the thick velvety broth turn a rich blue color. Thirty seconds followed in systematic stirring, counterclockwise. He could feel the stares of others following his actions, expecting him to finish first even partner-less (Rose had always been his partner). The Hufflepuffs on his right stood admiring his profile.

"Albus." The long fingers slipped, mistakenly dropping more rat hairs into the thick stew than they ought've. He regarded Scorpius with a sour look.

"What?" he said, annoyed.

"Higgs and Pucey have disappeared from the safe spot. That's why I was late."

Albus gave him a pointed stare. "And the cargo?"

"Is all safe. Balustrade hid it well. You'll be satisfied on that account. But we have to—"

"What have I told you about entrusting Higgs and Pucey?" he hissed. They were easily the most dimwitted two boys in Slytherin, if not the whole school. They had Hufflepuff to even that score out. "Now, not only will the Head Boy have his way with them, but we won't hear the end of it from McGonagall."

"Don't pin this all on me, _Potter,_ " the blond spat, a familiar sneer crossing his face.

His frown deepened. "Oh? Then who shall I blame for your serious lapse in judgment?"

"You know precisely who."

There was a sullen silence.

James Potter

Not just a regular oaf, but an intrusive one. His intelligence level would've rendered him harmless, if not for his nasty habit of interfering in affairs where he was unwanted. This interference had increased tenfold when McGonagall appointed him Head Boy.

From unconscious First-Years found in hushed corridors to dangerous items from Slughorn's cabinets going missing to escapades in the Forbidden Forest, not since Tom Riddle's time had there been a network of crime in Hogwarts— mirror image to the world— so carefully orchestrated. Albus managed himself very well in the midst of it. Aside from deadend rumors and the minor involvement in skirmishes, there was never enough proof to pinpoint him as the root.

However, James had grown increasingly suspicious of his brother's involvement ever since the House Elf rebellion of last year. The consequentially tighter regulations and increased surveillance ordained by him now were part of his ploy to siphon the supply of tools, grunts, and henchmen Albus had to choose from. It was basic strategy. You take the pawns, you beat the king. With fewer and fewer people were willing to work with the likes of him and Scorpius, Albus was expected to show face eventually.

Albus decided he would deal with _him_ later.

* * *

She reported her findings to the Head, who appeared too enthralled with the basilisk egg to pay any attention. Smartly dressed in lavender robes, he trailed his spidery fingers across the pale shell in admiration.

"So you think you saw dark magic, Weasley?"

Rose was certain of it.

"Rimbaud was trying to bring someone back to life."

"Does he know your method?"

"Well…no."

"So was he successful?"

"Didn't seem like it."

"Then this is not something worth discussion." The Head dismissed her carelessly, and turned his full attention toward his prize. "I have… other things to tend to at the moment."

Rose left the office, unsettled. That there were those trying to replicate her method frightened her. The price she'd had to pay to bring her brother back to life haunted her every action, and Rose intended to take the secret with her to the grave. To avoid further recognition, she'd dyed her tell-all Weasley hair brown. Hugo thought it looked ridiculous, that she was better off dyeing it _blue_ —he couldn't quite understand how badly the Diagon Alley incident had set her on edge. Her brother remained beautifully untainted in spite of the dark events unfolding around them, and for that she couldn't be more thankful.

The Head had told her that there were groups out there who would pursue her and Hugo aggressively. His hospital security had been upped. He had advised Rose to keep to herself, which, in addition to the volatile nature of her job, was practically a given.

Rose was pulled unexpectedly into a closet by the waist. The other hand wrapped over her mouth as she made contact with startling grey eyes. Her eyes widened as he pressed his forehead against hers, arm still curved around her waist, his body inches from hers pinning her to the wall in the cramped storage closet.

"Don't scream, Weasel. These nutters will have my head on a platter. I had to sneak past three goblins and an Unspeakable to get in here."

She nodded apprehensively and Scorpius released her mouth.

However, he didn't make any effort to resolve their close proximity.

"How'd you find me?" she gasped, her face flushed.

"A magician doesn't reveal his secrets."

"Hugo told you, didn't he?"

His eyes twinkled. "You've got an awfully helpful brother. I reckon he's taken a shine to me."

"He'd be the only one." She countered, anxiously combating his hold. "I told you to stay away."

"When have I ever done what you've told me?"

 _Please_. Her eyes were pleading now, distraught, and so Scorpius released his grip with an irritable sigh. He took a step away, grey eyes zipping over her dull locks.

"Dyed your hair cause of Diagon Alley?"

"Not talking about it."

"We don't have to," he said, quickly. "Let's talk about the weather. Nice night, isn't it? Not too hot…not too cold…you busy?"

"Always."

"I love it when you play hard to get." He watched her face turn a shade.

She folded her arms. "I'll bite, Malfoy. What's with the sudden interest in me?"

"Who said it was sudden?" He grinned. "Anyway, I'll explain it over dinner. There's a nice muggle Chinese down the block."

"No."

Scorpius quirked a brow. "No?"

"Get lost," she said flatly.

"Is that a no to Chinese or the date?"

"You don't know what I do."

"Is that the only reason?" His mouth lifted a smudge. "Because I reckon I can fix that."

"I'm serious, Malfoy."

"So am I." He gave her a brazen look. "Considerably more than Fourth Year."

"You'll have to find someone else to injure with gobstones," she huffed, with some bitterness.

See, now, that's the thing, Weasley. I don't think I _can._ "

He observed her with an indecipherable look, carefully placed between humor and sincerity— undoubtedly, one of the _array_ of calculated facial expressions he'd adopted from Albus.

Rose hastily peered out the closet and glanced back at him.

"Follow me."

She led him down the halls, a strong grip on his arm. After being ushered out a doorway that took him into the back alley behind the Ministry building—realization dawned on him.

"Weasel, what are you—"

The door slammed in his face.

* * *

Every Cain needed an Abel, and his brother was Gryffindor's Golden Boy through and through. Whereas most people refrained from making contact with Albus passing him in the halls, _he_ actively sought him out. Heroic, lovable, wholesome, and on top of that Head Boy and Quidditch captain—everything a Potter should've been.

The younger brother was lounging on his bed, engrossed in a fair bit of light reading— _Methods to Legilimency: How to Invade Any Mind_ —when the older poked his similar dark head through the doorway.

Albus didn't bother looking up.

"You're in the wrong common room again, Potter." He lazily flicked a page. "Surely you wouldn't want McGonagall to know you're abusing your position."

"You'd threaten your own brother, Potter?"

"It's on my list of favorite things to do."

"Right up there with locking house-elves into ovens, I presume," James mused. "I'll take this as a confession for last week's disaster in the kitchens."

Truth be told, Albus had found Malfoy's ploy a bit…lacking, that particular instance.

"A First Year could pull off such a weak stunt." He tsked, regarding his brother coldly. "And besides, you're not really here to discuss that, are you?"

The Seventh-Year warily glanced both ways before stepping through the passageway. "A Ravenclaw spotted two figures out of the Forest three nights ago… _past_ curfew. There was fire."

"And you thought of me? I'm flattered."

"I know you're always sending your mates out on expeditions."

"I can barely tolerate my siblings, James," he hissed. "Why would you think I have mates?"

The Gryffindor folded his arms. "Look, I don't _care_ what you call them. The simple fact is that you happen to be involved wherever there's trouble for me."

That was the problem with James; he always internalized matters, never thinking greater about things than the scope that encompassed him.

Sighing, Albus put his book down.

"So much bitterness," he drawled. "And Mummy wonders why we can't ever get along."

"Maybe if you helped me instead of being an evasive prick."

"Not really in the helping mood right now." He gave a lazy flick of the wrist. "Do try again later."

With that he picked up his book again. Moments passed and his idiot brother just stood there, despite the obvious dismissal, staring at him with his normal pathetic look.

"Look Al, if this is about Dad…what they say about you doesn't—doesn't _mean_ that you have to—"

"What part of _leaving_ do you not understand, James?" Albus snapped, his tolerance faded. "Leave. Me. The hell. Alone."

With a disappointed sigh, James stalked away, slamming the door behind him as he went. He had hoped that the dark occurrings in the world would set his brother straight. That he would realize the consequences of his actions, repent, _change_ ; but as it seemed, their father's death had only heightened his commitment to being an elusive bastard.

Albus had never been _good_ , in a manner of speaking. As far as James knew, there was no moral compass that drove him—he was a loose cannon, with the sole intent to cause mass chaos. A loaded gun without any direction where to shoot. Sometimes his older brother felt he was purposely rebelling against their father's expectations.

James couldn't understand why. Needless to say, there was a lot he didn't know.

He didn't know was that Harry's expectations had been different for Albus. He didn't know that the word _rebellion_ only scratched the surface of it. He didn't that after he left, Albus reached into his pocket and pulled out a sparkling vial. He didn't know that Balustrade had brought it to the boy that very evening before James's interference, and Albus had been lusting for the opportune time to study its contents. He didn't know that it had taken Albus _weeks_ of careful planning to obtain the rare and untainted sample of unicorn blood—noted for extending life dramatically.

Every great mind had _pondered_ it at the very least—immortality. The greatest conquest imaginable. Why would Albus be any different?

James didn't know that after he left, Albus brought the vial to his lips, and waited. He waited. He waited for the craving to bathe his tongue in its rich, golden liquid. He waited desperately. He waited irritably. He waited with grand schemes in mind and the desire to placate his insatiable greed.

Shattering disappointment struck him when the craving _did not_ occur.

* * *

 _Rose,_

 _Miss you. I have acquired something you will be interested in seeing. It's time to meet._

 ** _Love_** _, Al_

Curiosity, as it seemed, was all it took.

Albus let her decide when and where in a follow-up letter, knowing that she would never agree unless she thought it was on _her_ terms. Which is precisely what he wanted her to think.

The pale, handsome figure in a long dark coat stepped into the low-key muggle eatery. He did a quick assessment: a couple in the corner immersed in themselves, two middle-aged men guffawing loudly (too drunk to make sense, not drunk enough to go home), three waitresses on duty—two of whom sent Albus a flirtatious look, which he ignored, as he made his way towards the back booth.

Thirteen and a half minutes of contemplatively drumming his fingers would pass until his cousin made headway past the door. Same face greeting him. Same body jumping him in an embrace. Same apprehension on how he, Albus, would respond. Same mingled confusion when he pulled her even tighter, and, afterwards, kissed her forehead, holding her face in his hands, smiling that brilliant, heart-stopping smile of his— because _Legilimency_ only worked through close contact.

But what Albus hadn't accounted for was _Occulmency_ , as Rose had mastered mind-protection just as he had mastered mind-reading. Determined not to be thrown by this unexpected set-back, or the triumphed look his companion now held—Albus maintained ignorance to their cerebral battle. They sat across from each other. Drinks arrived via waitress.

"You ordered?" Rose inquired.

"I know what you like."

"We'll see."

A pause.

"I upset you," Albus began grimly— acknowledgement, reflection, apology. Girls usually ate this type of thing up, but she didn't even look at him.

Slightly annoyed by a lack of reaction, he continued, voice basked in regret:

"You were right to ignore me. I scared you, and hurt you, and took advantage of your trust. But I was just being selfish and immature. You've always been better than me. You've always been so much nobler. You don't even know how happy I am to see you, to know you're _ok_ —"

"How many times did you practice this bullshit in the mirror?" she lashed.

The mournful expression slipped into an impassive one.

"Only once," he replied. "Thought I'd give it a shot anyway."

"Arsehole."

"What foul language, Rose Pose. I may be an arsehole but I'm an arsehole you've _missed_."

She watched in disgust as the smug smile settled across his face. This was precisely the Albus she had wanted to avoid: arrogant, insolent, and far too clever for his own good.

"No need to be embarrassed about it… I've missed you too."

"You're not capable of it."

His mouth faltered, drawing to a sneer. This was precisely the Rose that grated his nerves: ignorant, headstrong, and far too critical for her own good.

"Who are you to decide what I am or not _capable_ of?" he hissed. "You think you can ignore me for a year and I won't come after you? Or that I won't be pissed? We were partners, Rose, _partners_ …until you betrayed me."

She averted her eyes, avoiding his pinpoint glare.

"I'm not sorry. I did what I had to to save him."

"And look where that's gotten you."

"You haven't got an empathetic bone in your body, have you?" she hissed back, tears stinging at her eyes. "Do you have any idea what I've been through this past year? With the trial and the job and what happened in Diagon Alley. Tell me Al, _did you ever once stop to worry for me?_ "

He was bemused. "Why would I do something like that?"

"Because that's what people do when they care about someone."

"Boring people," he dismissed.

" _Normal_ people, Al."

He scowled. _That_ struck a chord with him.

"I assure you that Malfoy is ever eager to fill the role of disposable napkin, Rose Pose. Feel free to exploit his affections any way you wish."

The jibe was cold and unwarranted. Aware of her school-girl fancy for the blond, Albus had _intentionally_ steered him in her way and they both knew it.

"You're completely heartless, aren't you?"

Albus was unsure why the hurt in her voice this made his skin prickle.

"Rose," he sighed, and gave her an intent look. "I knew you'd be fine."

"You presumptuous _bas_ —"

"You moan and cry and bitch, but in the end you're fine. You're _always_ fine."

I could've died, and if not, I could've killed myself," she hissed at him. "And then what would you do? You have no clue. You have no _clue_ —"

"Stop, _stop_." His hand reached over to grasp hers, squeezing it before she could pull away. There was a whimper, a tug and pull, but at last Albus won.

"Don't be daft." He brought her knuckles to his mouth for a kiss. "As if I'd let you."

There it was. The implicit understanding. That no matter how bad things got, how far they pushed each other, there was a limit. At some point, the reversion to long withstanding allies was not only necessary but expected—preferred. Anticipated.

"Stop groveling and show me what you came to show me, arsehole."

He scowled, disgruntled by her unforgiving tone. Reaching into his pocket, he retrieved the vial of golden liquid and placed it intently on the table in front of them.

"No tricks," he said, observing her expression with care, "A proposition based on equal exchange. Will you listen?"

Rose said nothing, eyes glued to the dangerous liquid swirling in the vial. Unicorn blood wasn't something you found in a potions lab. How Albus managed to get a hold of it—

"Unnecessary details," he dismissed, almost as if he'd read her thoughts.

"Is it cursed?"

"Would I do that to you?"

"Doesn't matter anyway." She lifted her chin, "I don't need it."

Albus gave an irritable sigh. "Consider the possibility, Rose, that your spell _isn't_ permanent. Consider that Hugo may still very well die. Unicorn blood will prolong his life for years. I'm only trying to help you."

"Why not keep it for yourself?" she probed, brow furrowed. Immortality seemed to fit in well with his God-complex.

"I don't want it."

"Then what _do_ you want?"

The query hung in the air like a bad smell.

"Right now I want to know how you did the spell," he replied, stiffly, "Reasons shouldn't matter. We embarked on the search together, so it's only fair that you tell me."

Rose snorted—as if fairness had ever been a priority to the boy.

"You'll try to bring back your dad."

"And what concern of yours is that?" he hissed, expression now lethal.

She narrowed her eyes. "Dangerous. And there's a price you'd have to pay for upturning his death."

 _"What?"_

"Can't tell you." She shook her head, "It'll break your heart... you'll hate me."

"You know neither of those things are possible, Rose."

She gave him a sad smile. A haunted one. The hollow one of a skeleton whose organs had been removed, whose marrow had been emptied, and who, without connective tissue, seemed only to be held together by chance. Luck. Fate. Curse. Whatever you want to call it. A permanent ticking seemed to resonate from her dulled eyes.

This time, she grabbed his hand and squeezed it in reassurance.

"This is different, Al. Death… is unlike anything we've encountered before."

Of course, he couldn't let _that_ go.


	6. Sink

The flame by his tableside flickered, illuminating the dark circles etched under insomniatic eyes. His pale face wore the damage of countless nights spent poring over books— _her_ books—yet remained unquestionably handsome, cold features basked in candle's glow. A radiance without warmth. Deciphering highlights and ink-stained pages, zealous notes made in the margins, he was able to retrace her steps through the Latin works of Flamel, Godelot, Antioch, etcetera. But Rose had been clever. Vital information was missing, still keeping him from piecing together the secret behind her coveted method.

In his private study—away from the masses of Hogwarts yet right under their very nose —Albus resumed her dark work. The moon outside the window reflected off the curve of his jaw-line, ethereal and angelic and _almost_ convincing—until late night passed and the orb ascended, beams shifting onto the surrounding pools of lethal red.

Failed trials.

Rabbits and serpents and rodents and owls and deer and the borrowed pets of his peers…no, not borrowed—for Albus took without asking and did not return. The floor was damp and sullied, _discolored_ by the trailing of their cadavers. The bottomless pile of corpses stacked high, high enough to cause a mere _flicker_ of emotion in emotionless eyes—but the surge was quickly discarded as frivolous.

Inquiry, after all, was useless without experimentation. Research was objective. Research took risks.

Every pioneer in the field of magic knew that.

Life and death were lovers, locked in a perpetual tango. One could not exist without the other, and he would be the maestro in their match-making. The putrid smell of evisceration lingered on his agile fingertips, racing over dirtied blood-crusted paper with the fervent passion of a novelist as he made notes, crossed ideas, and pursued alternative methods, mind on the thin-slice edge between harm and harmony. Shrouds of blood and secrecy, a nauseating stench of enthralls— oh Death— encompassed the _near-godly_ boy as he sought the means to Life.

What poetic horror.

Even in such a violent state of mania, her last words to him burned in his memory like acid.

 _He's made you sick, Al._ She had said, referring to his father— looking at him with _those_ eyes. Big, brown, and sorrowful; they was practically parasitic. Her heavy gaze seeped through his flawless skin, scrutinizing the diseased blood underneath. She stripped him down to the cold, hard bone and he _hated_ her for it.

 _No_ …hate was a strong word. Albus could never really hate Rose.

She pushed him further than he would've liked, though. Further than he would've allowed anyone else. Her single-mindedness grated on his nerves, as well as that _damned_ inability to acquiesce with his demands. No doubt, it was long-festering jealousy; he had always been better than her and _she knew it._

 _It'll break your heart. You'll hate me._

This further infuriated Albus—and piqued his interest. What horrifying secret about the spell could induce such a reaction from him? What did Rose know that he didn't?

What could possibly break the stone heart of a boy who didn't, _couldn't_ , even cry at his father's death?

* * *

Meanwhile, Hogwarts suffered from the aftermath of his expedition involving unicorns. The tip of the Astronomy Tower, with its dangling shadows held ideal for private discussion away from prying ears. Members from his own private cabinet of Slytherins clamored in heated debate from his left and right, about the latest developments.

"Well Pucey and Higgs reckon they overheard the Ravenclaw Prefects talk about seeing flames in the Forest as well." Reported Adrienne Everett, her voice shrill and nasally.

"Bullshit." Fired back Balustrade, "I was there with Malfoy that night. Your informers are lying, Potter."

"Is that so?"

The informers- sheepish fourth Years- sank further down in their seats as Albus lifted an eyebrow at them.

"I was out there—I didn't see anything either." Rigel said earnestly.

There were mumblings of general consensus in the room.

"If no one heard or saw anything, then explain how the Head Boy found out?" said an enraged Everett.

"Obviously we have a double agent in the room." Reed grumbled, looking toward the drowsy Slytherin Prefect, Roderick Halen, who had drool sticking out the side of his mouth.

Scorpius rolled his eyes at Reed. "Well spotted, he looks like a mastermind at deception."

Albus cleared his throat, loudly.

The messy Prefect head shot up, alarmed ("P-Potter! S-Sorry, j-just resting my eyes a b-bit!"), and fell once more into a deep slumber. Albus let it go. Halen had been tasked with relaying information about James day in and pulled regular night shifts, and thus, earned the occasional benefit of the doubt.

"It was a clean getaway. No one should've seen us." Scorpius confirmed, looking at Albus.

A solemn silence followed in which the only sound was the contemplative drumming of his fingers against the side of his chair.

Everyone waited.

After a moment of deliberation Albus finally spoke: "We're aborting all further operations until we find out who's tagging them."

A loud raucous of displeasure followed his statement, and he had to verbally dismiss the meeting. Scorpius caught the back end of his arm as he started to leave, drawing a gaze toward a nervous looking Balustrade. Albus gave him a pointed look.

"Fancy a walk to Hagrid's with us, Potter?"

Thick gusts of wind blew against their faces while the three boys trailed past the ends of the Herbology garden. Albus kept his neck erect and presumed not to be bothered. Scorpius strolled lazily beside him, hands tucked in his pockets. Balustrade walked behind them, keeping his gaze on his feet. Blatantly withdrawn. Hollow cheekbones. Dark patches under sunken eyes. The sheen of energy normally coating the arrogant Fifth Year seemed dull. After a few moments of silently walking, Albus spoke sharply:

"Out with it, Balustrade. What do you want?"

"I'm sorry."

There was a slight hesitation in Albus' next step.

"It was you." He muttered, quietly, watching the brunette's face redden with shame.

"M-Malfoy and I split up when we were scouting for unicorns, and t-there was an accident." He stammered.

Oh how Albus hated hearing these words. "What sort of accident?"

"I had to do s-something, P-Potter. It j-just came at me—"

"So you started a fire." He interjected, seething, "Of all the things you could do to scare some stupid animal away you chose arson?"

"It's my fault," Scorpius intervened, "I should've kept a better eye on him—"

"Don't defend him." Albus turned his sharp gaze toward the whimpering Fifth Year.

"Balustrade can speak for himself."

The boy swallowed, bottom lip trembling.

"Who was this Ravenclaw that saw you?" He demanded.

"Some g-girl. But that's not even the worst part." Balustrade looked near tears, "I may have k-killed a unicorn in the fiendfyre."

Albus deadpanned. Killing a unicorn reduced the consumer of its blood to a miserable half-life (Voldemort, his father's First Year. Albus had carefully reviewed all the mistakes of previous recipients). He had specifically given the boy a syringe to obtain a _sample_ of blood, not butcher the whole damn thing.

Albus had nearly drunk it. Albus had nearly given it to _Rose_.

He took out the cursed vial and shoved it in Balustrade's hands.

"Drink it." He ordered, cold eyes narrowed on the whimpering boy.

Balustrade stood there, scared shitless. Albus procured his wand and aimed it towards him. " _Drink it._ " He enunciated, "You had no problem handing it to me. So now you'll drink it."

Again, the boy refused.

" _Deprimo."_

He was shot down. The spell induced pressure on his ribcage until whimpering transformed to full-blown screaming.

Scorpius grimaced.

"Stop, Potter. He's learned his lesson."

Albus ignored this. His eyes flashed intently as he increased the power beyond the spell's intended capabilities. Slowly, until the shrieks subsided to air-stricken gasps. At that moment, he did not want to listen to reason. He did not want to listen to _anything_ except the sounds of bone rupture-

"I said _stop_ ,"

His wand flew out of his hand and landed ten feet away, jinxed. Balustrade, seizing the opportune moment and scrambling to his feet, quickly staggered out of sight.

Albus turned toward Scorpius with a fierce look.

"What the hell was that?"

"Trying to save us the clean-up," He replied mildly.

"You do _not_ get to make that call."

"He would've pissed himself…you remember what _that's_ like don't you?"

His unabashed look made Albus visibly falter. The calculative fingers slipped in retrieving their wand. Scorpius pretended not to notice.

Following silence indicated the matter was dropped.

Now there was the bigger issue at hand. A unicorn carcass wouldn't go unnoticed.

"What's the plan?"

Scorpius waited patiently as Albus paced back and forth, mulling it over.

They had to cover their tracks. Killing a unicorn was a serious offense and held the penalty of murder. Hiding the corpse was out of the question, as they couldn't be seen anywhere near the Forest with James breathing down their backs. Naturally the Slytherins wouldn't speak a word. Balustrade would go mute and stay out of sight until things died down. Then there was the matter of the Ravenclaw mentioned…

"It's simple. There was only one witness. We eliminate the witness and we solve the problem."

Scorpius paled. Albus raised his brows at the reaction.

"I'm not proposing we _kill_ her. Planning a murder to cover up an unplanned murder is stupid, don't you think?"

"I'm listening."

* * *

Like many other girls, Daphne Williamson had fancied the younger Potter since her eyes fell on his polished features and silky locks. Sure the older one, James, was cute in his own right—but _Albus_ could not be summed up in such a syllable.

He was _illicit_. He was tantalizing. He was positively Untouchable.

Sure enough, there was something quite suspicious about being asked to Slughorn's party by the elusive boy—and not even directly but via letter. _I'm taking you to Slughorn's party. No need for reply. I'll see you there. –Albus Potter._ He was in her Defense class no doubt, but it was likely he didn't even know her name. A Ravenclaw ought to have been intelligent enough to note this, but Daphne was too preoccupied with _instant romantic notions_ to care.

Gold and emerald hangings draped from the walls. Brilliant specks of light flashed from the ornate lamp hanging from the ceiling as music throbbed in the background. House elves interspersed themselves around the knees of taller beings, managing large platters of food. Daphne could spot _her date_ —how she loved saying this—off to the side, immersed in conversation with Slughorn. His gaze flickered toward her and he briefly excused himself.

Clad in well-fitted robes and groomed to a handsome finish, he may have resembled any other boy at the party, yet there was an easiness in his strides that made him stand out. It was the firm shoulders, the steady brow, the undisputed confidence that radiated from his mere presence. Without trying, he attracted the attention of every eye in the room.

Her breath left as his tall silhouette approached hers, a jovial smile easing over his face. In a single fluid movement, he grabbed two glasses from a passing house-elf and handed one to her.

"Sorry about that. The professor kept me."

"He was probably telling you about his contacts." Daphne fought the urge to blush. "I mean you're so brilliant at potions. Everything, really."

His gaze drew to her and a curious brow quirked. Daphne instantaneously went red. Was she too transparent? Someone like Albus must've been used to girls fawning over him—though he didn't give them a passing glance.

The boy smirked, drawing the cup from his lips.

"I assure you I'm not brilliant at everything."

She had to admit she was curious. "Like what?"

"Dancing, for instance—never got the hang of it." A small smile played on his mouth, "But you could show me, couldn't you?"

Any girl would've been ecstatic to teach dance to _Albus Potter_ , and Daphne was no different. He stumbled over her feet, mismatching her steps as he clung to her waist and ran shivers down her arm. Then his sheepish and endearing apologies, which she countered with assurances. _You're not that bad_ , she said and he laughed. Daphne decided she liked his laugh—tinkling and reverberatingly masculine.

Daphne truly, honestly thought she was seeing a side to the boy no-one had before.

Little did she know that Albus was an excellent dancer. And that every slip, stumble, mistake he made had been _carefully planned_ , brandished with enough lingering eye-contact and playful smiling to keep her thoroughly immersed in him. Aesthetics. Just as perfection-or the façade of it- was vital for maintaining dominance, Albus knew all too well the importance of feigning _imperfection_. Flaws broke barriers between people. Allowed for disclosure.

Still, on some latent level he couldn't help but feel irritated. She was quite stupid—steadfast on laughing at all his jokes, blushing at all his superficial compliments, and not having enough sense to recall the mostly-true rumors about him. And all the small-talk of school and weather and friends—how the idle chatter _grated_ on his nerves.

This had always been his problem, tolerating people beyond their worth to him, feigning interest in mundane low-intelligence subjects when all he wanted was to remain inside his head.

"I had a question."

Damn girl, interrupting his thoughts. Albus glazed his annoyance over with a smile.

"What is it?"

"I just mean that," She said bashfully, eyes downward. "No, never mind, you'll think it's stupid."

"Tell me," He urged. Though he could sense all her surface thoughts through _Legilimency_ , there was the matter of putting stray ideas together—which he found to be of great nuisance.

"You know, people say things about you," she stammered. "Some of it is quite unsettling…not that _I_ believe them, Albus. I mean my friends say that—but I don't think you're a…vampire or anything. Never mind, the rumors are just silly."

"I assure you some of them are quite true."

Daphne giggled, unsure why she was doing so. Then her mouth slipped. "What about the one with you and your cousin?"

Albus fought the urge to roll his eyes. Of all the malicious things said him, girls grew fixated with _that_ one. Over the years his consistent lack of interest in girls had heightened focus on his attachment with Rose. Scandalous insinuations followed that sort of thing and annoyed his cousin –who knew better— to no end, but Albus had cared very little.

Often he aggravated them on purpose.

"That one's not true," he muttered.

Daphne relaxed, now that the main cause of her tension had been dispelled. Her affection for Albus was only heightened of course. Obviously, her friends had been wrong. How could a boy so kind and intelligent, not to mention mind-bogglingly handsome, be anything but misunderstood? True there was a …strangeness about him, but maybe he just needed a brave girl like Daphne to get through the shroud of mystery to the soft interior. Yes, that's what Albus required. A love interest.

Albus was a performer at his finest.

"I'm glad you came." He beamed at her. "I don't ask girls out often. And it's not very often I find someone so special."

"Oh?" She flushed with pleasure. With a few chosen words, he'd heightened her importance and boosted her own admiration of him. Pleased with the result, Albus continued, silver tongue spinning gold.

He leaned over, stroking back her hair. "You're different," he whispered, sending excited shivers through her body, "Different from your friends. They're all average aren't they? You're talented, exotic, _unique_."

"You're so sweet, Albus" She giggled nervously, eyes on the ground, "But I didn't think you knew my name."

"Of course I do." With a delicate finger, he pulled her gaze into his. She stared, transfixed by his smolder-heavy eyes. He had her. Any moment now she would melt to his feet.

Albus pulled away at the opportune time moment she leaned in to kiss him.

No. Too early.

Embarrassment flitted across her face, but she said nothing as he politely excused himself to the bathrooms. When he returned he asked her to dance as if nothing had happened. She did not attempt to kiss him again.

The night dragged on, filled with dancing and surface-level flirting.

Despite his growing impatience with the charade, Albus continued with his performance, playing the coy date and dispelling the belief that, in reality, he found her as interesting as flobberworms and slightly more useless (flobberworms could be a key ingredient in the right potion). Finally he'd had enough.

"It's too loud here, Daphne," he murmured, with a lazy bat of the eyes.

"Are you getting tired?" she said.

"Let's go somewhere…more private."

Her heartbeat picked up. With a sly finger to his lips, he pulled her out of the door, away from the masses of people, down the corridor, down the halls, down the stairs, and still down. Like a moth to cold flame—for how could she be anything but?—she followed him. Rebellion danced in her excited thoughts, and he was able to sense every one of her desires as he pulled her into an empty classroom.

A smile flitted across his face as he turned toward her, though it was far from good-natured. Cold and enigmatic, it ran an odd chill through Daphne, "Are you scared?"

Daphne shook his head. Albus smiled and leaned toward the girl, running his thumb gently down her soft cheek—a cold touch leaving a trail of numbness on her skin. Daphne wasn't whether to feel excited or repulsed by this action, her attention held by the strange fascination in his green irises, shimmering without warmth. He leaned forward. "I answered your questions tonight, didn't I?" he purred into her ear. "Now you answer mine."

He must've been flirting, but it made her nervous that they were alone.

Nonetheless, she gave a hesitant smile, batting her eyelids. "W-What do you want to know about me?"

"Not about you." His lips quirked up, smile widening and reflecting the manic look in his eyes. He circled her closely, fierce predator toying with prey. "What you saw. What you're hiding. It presses against your conscious. It haunts your every nightmare. Even tonight when you were so foolishly immersed in me, I saw the flicker of guilt trace across your face. I note these things, Daphne. In a matter of hours, I have noted _everything_ about you."

He stopped, glancing intently at her. "Secrecy is a disease. Tell me, what secrets are you harboring?"

The sudden shift in conversation left her mouth too dry to speak. With a lazy tilt of the head, the boy continued, "Now, now. Humor me. We're just talking here, like friends yes?"

 _Friends._ Scorn laced every syllable as he pronounced the word.

"I-I really shouldn't, Albus."

"Don't be silly. Friends share secrets don't they?" In seconds he had her against the wall, wry grin snaking across features. Honey dripped from his poisoned lips. "Secrets are bad things to keep, Daphne. You can trust me. You _want_ to trust me."

She did.

"I saw s-something in the Forest," she gasped.

His eyes flashed as he tilted his brow. "What?"

No response.

"What did you see, Daphne?" He insisted, jaw clenching. It took all his willpower to keep his temper in check.

"I-I can't tell you—"

"Who did you see?" He demanded, "What did he look like? What did he do? Who was with him? _What_ precisely did you see?"

"I…I—"

Without warning he pressed his _Veritaserum-coated_ lips (only two drops) against hers, rendering her incapable of speech for a few good seconds before pulling away. "Two boys." She gasped, pink faced. "Brunette and blond. I saw…I think I saw a unicorn. It was dying. There was fire. I ran. I don't know. I fancy you. Why am I saying this? Please don't hurt me."

Albus gave a rigid scowl. "Who have you told about the unicorn?"

"N-No one, I swear."

He pressed his mouth against hers again, palms digging into the wall behind her. She let out a soft moan, heart pounding against her chest. Her hands gripped at his collar, lips eagerly enveloping his.

Albus could easily sense her multitude of conflicting emotions through _Legilimency_. The mental invasion made it easy for him to comprehend her level of delusion. Apprehension, excitement, intrigue, _lust_ —he could taste it in the air between them. Snippets, mind you. Albus could not grasp it all. He did not _want_ to. Out of sheer curiosity, he delved further into her mind.

It was _revolting_. There was no intelligent thought, no substance, no greater scope of understanding. Barren landscape lain to waste by drunkenness and disease. _Carnal_. The most primal of human emotions had consumed her pathetic little world and Albus could not be more disappointed.

Disgusted by both himself and the girl, he pulled away.

"Who have you told about the unicorn?"

"No one."

"Good."

He turned around and spat on the ground, wiping his foul mouth. With his wand pulled out, he turned toward her, and in five heartless seconds erased a week's worth of her memory.

* * *

In the upcoming days the investigation was expected to die out without witnesses or proof. Daphne would carry on with life, oblivious to everything she had seen. Balustrade would –as Albus ordered—keep his mouth and head out of trouble. Things would go back to normal.

Except they didn't.

Hogwarts—the iceberg, on the brink of tilting. Since the uproar that Rose's spell had caused in England and following near-anarchy, even the safest of havens for aspiring wizards stood shaky. Often in times of great distress, all it takes is One Little Push to sink even the unsinkable.

In this case, it was the centaurs.

They discovered the unicorn carcass first. Outrage struck, against the _foolish_ and _cruel_ wizards, but more than that, it was fear. The ancient pact between their clans and long-gone Dumbledore crumpled. Threats were received by Headmistress McGonagall who, in all honesty, tried her absolute best to placate the tension. But the centaurs would hear none of it. Enough was enough. Filthy humans. Did their depravity know no bounds? First revival of the dead and now _this_ –not since Voldemort's time had the dead body of a unicorn been found in the Forbidden Forest, and everyone knew the dark chain of events that set off.

And so, the centaurs declared _history was not allowed to repeat itself._

Hogwarts strengthened curfews, reinstated dementors at security positions, and prepared itself for battle. But students are not warriors. Expecting parents to willingly send their children against war bred half-breeds was outrageous. First-through-Third Years were pulled out instantaneously. Then the raids started. Hogwarts adopted an alarm to warn of break-ins. The _Di-ding—Di-ding!_ and teachers would go scouring the premises. Prefects made the headcounts but it didn't matter because students disappeared and reappeared regularly, beaten and bruised.

 _The iceberg sank._

The centaur search for the perpetrator would continue for three months until Headmistress McGonagall put a stop to it-in the bitterest way. She addressed the Great Hall, her tone foreboding:

"These are very dark times for us all at Hogwarts. We cannot sacrifice the security of our students for their education. Therefore, I stand today addressing the school with heavy heart and great regret"—pause, nostrils flare, continue— "I must declare that _unless the culprit confesses_ , Hogwarts will shut down…"

Albus stopped listening.

He could feel the heavy stares of his classmates at the back of his head. Balustrade watched him with a fearful expression, sinking in his seat—the pathetic coward. Scorpius gave him a desperate, half-eaten look, silent plea in his eyes resonating with the same message as James' judgmental glare.

 _Confess, Albus._

McGonagall's eyes flickered over his impassive expression but didn't linger.

 _Confess. Repent. Redeem._

Following the end of her speech, Albus made his way out of the Great Hall.

 _You can change, Albus. You can fix this. All it takes is one confession._

He knew no one would betray him. Fear induced powerful loyalty.

 _Turn yourself in. Redemption waits. It's what you want._

Without proof, no one could touch him.

 _Redeem. Redeem. Redeeeeeeeeee—_

Albus slammed his fist against the wall, hard. Feeling his bones break, pain reverberated through his arm. Blood grazed the tops of his knuckles; he ran his fingers over the bruises. No tears built in his eyes but there was pain—stinging, poignant, and well-deserved.

And pain was better than nothing.

* * *

"Let me take the blame."

At last, Scorpius found him in the astronomy tower. With his back towards the blond, he stood near the edge staring down at the grounds, watching their peers scatter through the courtyard like specks of sand. He did not reply.

"I'll say I did it," Scorpius pleaded again. "I might as well have. I was there."

Albus did not turn around, nor did he flex a muscle.

"Don't be daft, Scorp. This was Balustrade's fault."

 _"Does it matter?"_

"Don't try to play hero," Albus muttered. "One James is more than enough."

"Someone needs to take the blame here."

Albus pulled his wand out and turned to him with a headlong glare—the threat hanging between them unspoken. But Scorpius did not meet his anger with his own.

"I won't tell them it was your fault."

And this was the truth, as close to the truth Scorpius would ever get with the boy. Even in the face of expulsion and possible imprisonment, never would he even _consider_ betraying Albus.

"I've always covered your ass, Potter." He looked at him, "I'm just asking this once, please— as a friend— _please_ don't let Hogwarts shut down."

"I don't have friends."

The cold dismissal angered the blond, for it was now more inexcusable than ever. This was the boy who carried Potter to the hospital following his brutal beating their Second Year. This was the boy who stayed up nights after his horrific nightmares, checking the _damn_ windows. This was the boy who gave Potter the benefit of the doubt and threw himself into harm's way again and again for him—and for what? What sort of boy ran and got tea at _blasted 4AM_ for his non-best mate?

Scorpius would always defend Potter—against classmates, the school, _Rose_ , and the whole damn world if asked. It was the nature of their duality. Prison didn't ever register when he would go to the depths of _hell_ for the boy.

"I don't give two shits what you think about it all, Potter," he snapped, "As far as I'm concerned, we're friends."

At these words, a flicker of _something_ passed over Albus' face and his shoulders descended.

"They'll connect the dots," he said, voice weary, "Your confession will sink us both."

"Then let's sink together, Potter. For the good of the school."

He stood on the verge of tears but spoke with a conviction Albus had never heard before, using silly words like _good_ and _friend_. For once Albus wasn't sure how to respond.

In a milder world, perhaps, Albus would've shown the moral consideration and taken the bitter pill of his punishment. Confess. Repent. _Redeem_. But not in their world of chaos and uncertainty, horror and intrigue. It did not make sense to pursue some outdated code of ethics when the Wizarding world hung on the brink of rebellion. Truth held no guarantee of justice and he could not _stomach_ the thought of going to prison.

Not when there was so much to do.

Braver generations had tried to save the world. Albus was concerned only with surviving it.

"I won't be a martyr, Malfoy," he replied coldly, pointing his wand at his chest.

From all sides, Slytherins emerged so that there was not one but _twelve_ wands pointed at Scorpius. Cowards would undergo their conscience at the prospect of fear, and Albus was excellent at playing everyone's worst nightmare.

 _Playing_. He didn't know when to stop. Scorpius sent him a wretched look of disappointment.

"This isn't you."

A jeer flitted his face. "You haven't a clue what I'm capable of—"

"I know very well what you're capable of, _Potter_." The blond spat harshly. "But I also know where the limit stands between that and what you're willing to do."

"I don't have limits."

" _Bullshit_." He scowled. "The wit and the wand tricks, you might have these idiots fooled, but in the end you're human—"

"Stand down, _Malfoy_." Albus gritted his teeth.

"No." His brow narrowed, "In the end you bleed and hurt just like the rest of us, Potter. And you're damned if you think I can't see it."

" _Expulso_."

The sudden flash of light hit Scorpius square in the chest, knocking him to the ground. Everyone dodged out the room, Pretense had been dropped. The confrontation between Caesar and Brutus had floundered off the edge.

Albus approached the boy on the ground, eyes stone-green with anger. He had never lifted a wand against Scorpius before. Never had to until now.

They were now the only two in the room. Albus leant on his knees near him. "If you want to see blood, I will gladly show you your own," He hissed, "Don't make people into heroes, Malfoy, and do _not_ underestimate me."

"Then wipe my memory and be done with it," the boy croaked. If Potter was that heartless of a bastard, then he could prove it. "It's your quick-fix solution to everything isn't it?"

Albus did not answer immediately. "I want you to remember this moment," he hissed, standing up at last. "I want you to remember that heroes don't exist. There are two kinds of people in this world—those that survive and those that don't."

Scorpius grimaced as if he had been kicked, while the boy stalked away.

He reveled in his crushing disappointment. There would be no hand to help him up; he had long stopped expecting it. The battle was lost and now the guilt would set in about bringing the end to their school-days. As Potter chose to ignore it, Scorpius would carry the weight for both of them. It wasn't meant to be like this. No, Scorpius didn't want to _feel_ like this— the lingering delusion, sadistic optimism, that in their five years of pseudo-friendship, he had made an impact on the stone-cold boy just as he had on him.

Potter would do great things someday. Everyone knew this.

Scorpius had hoped some of those things would be good too.

* * *

"And so Hogwarts shut down." I blinked. "Then what, Rose? How do we get to the war?"

The old woman looked at me. As it seemed, the more I learned the more confused I grew about it all. I asked her if this was normal.

"All in due time, Mr. Walker." She nodded, understanding my frustration. "We are still years away from the war. True, war served an absolute end…. but there were other ends along the way—tragic, bitter, miserable ends, and with every one of those ends there was a beginning. For Albus, as you very well know….the end of Hogwarts was only the _beginning_."

I braced myself for the darker part of the story.


	7. Freeze

There was something I didn't understand about wizards.

"You people can do anything, right? I mean guns and bombs shouldn't really be a big deal."

"I suggest you refer back to your textbooks for the concise details of the war," she said, with a polite smile.

"I'm sorry, Rose. I don't mean—"

"It's quite all right, Mr. Walker. We are friends now, aren't we? Feel free to ask what you like."

I nodded. "You were in the war."

"I was."

"How did your side lose?"

She blinked, amazed by the question. "We were not _gods_ , Mr. Walker."

"Yes, but—"

"You misunderstand." She shook her head. "Take the greatest wizard, strip away his magic and what remains? They use it as a crutch, rely on it more than they would ever know. Without, they are nothing more than men or women. _Children_. Those subjected to the muggle realms near the end died…such frailty was never meant to thrive."

I knew I was prying into delicate workings beyond my realm of concern but I didn't care. Secrets that hid behind Rose Weasley's hardened mind would be lost with her soon-approaching death. I had to find out what I could.

"Do you believe your loss was inevitable from the very beginning?" I asked, very quietly.

She smiled at me through her crinkled skin, a silent _yes_ , yet without need for elaboration, I could tell she hadn't always. Time had worn her down, shading all that she knew and loved with harsh cynicism. The turn of the world had broken her resolve, and the only way she could survive was by changing her philosophy.

"Failure was in our design, Mr. Walker. Albus and I are testament of that."

* * *

On his last night home, he attempted sleep but to no avail. Muffled sobbing resonated from the room across, amplified to extremes in the recesses of his mind. Eventually, forced to climb out of bed, he crept into the room across from his.

Lily. Buried beneath mounds of blankets and pillows, bare calf sticking out the end.

He watched her shaking body from the doorway. Wordlessly walking over, he slipped in beside her. The fourteen-year old quickly wiped her face, startled. _Al. What are you_ -he shushed her. Wrapped his arms around her. Pulled her small body close. Murmuring soft words, he stroked her hair with a strange tenderness. This made her cry harder, because the last time her brother had shown such affection was when their father died.

Now he was saying good-bye.

"Did you do it?" she almost choked.

He pulled her closer, mouth grazing her forehead. "Lily…" His warm breath tingled her skin. "C'mhere."

"James said…he said—"

"Oh hush, Lily." He kissed her eyelids. "James is always saying things. The question is do you believe him?"

"James doesn't lie," she said bleakly, watching his gaze harden over.

Wrong answer.

Abruptly, he began detangling himself from her. She grabbed his arm with fervent urgency as he climbed out of the bed. In their burning, crippling sham of a family, she would grab onto anything, _anything_ at all from him.

He scowled. "Do you still love me?"

"You're my brother. You'll always be my brother."

"That wasn't my question," he snapped. "Do you _love_ me?"

Silence

Albus didn't wait too long for an answer that wasn't going to come.

A quick palm grazed the side of her cheek - the closest to an apology he could muster - but before she could make sense of it, he was gone.

James would take care of her

* * *

With solid snow beneath his feet, her son stood, pink-faced and shivering, glaring wordlessly at her. He had no bags in his hand. She had confiscated his wand, _most prized possession_ , and snapped it in half, so now he would take nothing at all.

Red mane wild around her face, Ginny regarded him with bloodshot eyes, anger drawn over her fading features. She was growing old. She may have been beautiful once, but her husband's death had sent her into a downward spiral of depression and alcoholism. She was not as strong as she used to be. Still, it would be foolhardy to ignore what took place at Hogwarts; James had told her everything. So, in spite of all her shortcomings, the one thing Ginny Potter was _not_ was an idiot.

Blood ties grow thin stretched over too long a distance.

He was no son of hers anymore.

"This is your fault," he spoke abruptly, puncturing the silence between them.

"What happened between you and your father has nothing to do with me."

"You should've protected me. That's what mothers do, you know."

She winced at the edge in his voice.

Albus continued, teeth-chattering, "So maybe he snapped after the war. Maybe he grew paranoid. Reasons don't matter. The point is that you knew what he was doing to me, and you did _nothing_."

Her eyes traveled upwards and she gave a weary sigh. "Remember that your father saved the world. He'd seen things we couldn't understand."

"He was a saint, wasn't he?" he laughed spitefully.

She closed her eyes for a moment but speaking: "Merlin knows I tried, Albus. I'm sorry—"

"No, you're not," he interjected. Turning a heel he took down the street, the unspoken _but you will be_ lingering in the frozen abyss between them.

He would not glance back at her. He would _never_ glance back. His actions were testament to her lifelong negligence. She'd focused on her first-born – _Mini-Harry_ — and left Albus to fend for himself all these years.

She exercised perfect apathy, that woman.

And she would not get the satisfaction of seeing him hurt.

* * *

Christmas lights flickered from inside the house and the pale, tattered figure on the street paused long enough to glance the window. The image was akin to a holiday card; happy family adorned in holly and ornaments, children laughing, parents exchanging gifts. Annoyed by this superficial cheer, he drew up his collar and stalked away.

Albus did not like holidays, or the misplaced sense of belonging they stirred; it was deceitful and largely impractical. No, he had no _need_ for such fleeting, abstract notions. His current life required the upmost vigilance. How long had it been since he had last eaten? He remembered everything, yet could not recall this vital fact dammit. Somehow the freezing weather had dulled his perception of time.

Shoppers and businessmen and mothers and children and people from all walks of life passed him on the streets, ignorant that they were in the presence of the brightest wizard of his age. Still, _brilliance_ alone would not convince them to help any more than it would convince muggle shop-owners to hire a boy without credentials and any history of schooling. People were not imbeciles, and Albus needed much more than his raw wit to fool them.

He sat on the curb studying them, the muggles, scrutinizing and dissecting everything in sight. They had a strength he could not decipher—maybe it came from a lifetime of looking down on the non-magical world and then being forced into it. It was their autonomy, their resilience, their _contentment_ that threw him.

While Albus could not imagine a world without magic, these people _celebrated_ it.

But the faceless crowd would give him no sympathy.

Sunlight waned, casting long shadows over black and blue and dried patches covered of what had once been flawless pale skin—wandering streets Albus deftly resembled roadkill.

Still, his base looks managed to attract unsavory attention in the seedier part of town. The scantily-clad, shadow woman winked at him. "How about it, handsome?"

As Albus trudged past her through the snow, she trailed after him.

"Haven't got money? I'll do you for free."

"Pedal your shit elsewhere," he grumbled, flakes nipping at his cheeks.

Offended, the woman shot him a glower and stalked away. Albus realized he could've _easily_ conned her out of a meal and a warm place to stay had he feigned a little charm. But fatigue etched his patience for such things and all he could focus on were the vicious pangs of hunger shooting down his middle. Burying his hands deep in pockets for any quantity of warmth, he continued aimlessly down his path.

In his desperation he would later scour trashcans looking for sustenance. Finding nothing, survival would drive him to seek that woman out and temporarily suspend his disgust at the prospect of a meal. Sighs and grunts and intertwined limbs and _touches_ — the excess stimulus would overwhelm his honed senses, and the seventeen-year old would clench his jaw to tolerate it. This was an instance Albus would never speak of. His own exploitation. Utterly humiliated, he would embezzle money out of her purse when she fell asleep and slip through the window.

The streets of Stratford, hungry and littered with other homeless, were brutal at night, and a penniless wizard had no way of coping without his long-relied-upon magic. There were brutal beatings by those as hungry as him, as wretched as him, but with the added advantage of guns and knives.

Blood. He could taste it on his torn lips. Feel it trickle down the length of his neck as gruff hands later held him by the shoulder blades against brick-and-cement. The sour smell of alcohol wafted from his captor's breath. He was broad built with a crude face, akin to a bulldog's.

"Why don't you empty out those pockets?" The words came out like fumes inches from his face.

"Piss off," Albus snarled.

The mistake was followed swiftly by a corrective kick in the groin. The hands dropped and he fell onto pavement, curling from the pain. The accomplice gave a caustic cackle, beady eyes polished with glee. His greasy hair matted over his forehead like it had been painted on. "Pretty boy's got a mouth on him, innit?"

"I reckon he needs a lesson in manners." Bulldog fingered a shiny piece of silver tucked in the corner of his pocket.

Abruptly, they jumped him. He was pinned to the ground, held by a blade to the neck as they rummaged his pockets. Kicked his face. Thieves cutting down thieves. His money was taken, along with his shoes.

 _Merry Christmas_

His teeth chattered as he propped himself against the wall, wrapping his tattered jacket around the new wounds—without healing potions, it was all he could do to prevent infection. But Albus would not cry. He was too weak even to make audible noise.

Albus conserved his mental energy to think, _think_ of a way out.

 _"Now, son, remember that this pain is nothing but a mind trick."_

Out of all his acquaintances from school, there was no one he could trust to see him in such a state. And Scorpius— _no_ —Albus would not think of him. They were no longer on speaking terms.

Night descended and as he slowly drifted off to sleep in the abandoned alley, his last thoughts lingered on Rose.

* * *

 _Prophet Headline: Hogwarts Shuts Down over Dispute with Centaurs_

Rose tried not to dwell too long on it, for the affairs of Hogwarts no longer concerned her. She was a world away and, as she often told herself, _glad for it._

The sun lingered over the horizon, almost afraid to set on the two figures out in the open field. As Hugo had been making formidable strides in his recovery, Rose had to give in to his demands about learning quidditch.

Losing control of his broom, Rose watched as he plunged headlong into the ground.

Moments later— "It was the _wind_." He flinched as she tended to the bruise on his cheek.

"Right. And last time it was the sun. And before that it was a bug."

"Can't help it you're a crap teacher."

"Find another one then."

"Would if I could. You're _abysmal_."

Done for the day, they limped off the fields together, her arm gripping his side (his legs still had trouble supporting his weight). She managed to peck his cheek before he swatted her away. _Gross!_ He shoved her aside, and tried to balance on his flimsy limbs. She snuck a grin. "Wanna race, Hugo?"

"Oi, shut it…wait hold on! Get back here!"

Staggering forward, he lunged to grab her arm but ended up swooping to the ground. Laughing, he pulled her down by the ankle as she tried to edge away. But her attempts to punish him with merciless tickling were interrupted by the nearby crack of apparition.

The pointy-eared creature stood dressed in an abominable picnic rag.

"Meister will _fräulein_ zu sehen."

In the past year and half, Rose had gone from _wertlos Kind_ —worthless child— to a less degrading _fräulein_.

"I thought there were two." Hugo hissed. "Where's the one that wears the dishtowel?"

"Una _schläft._ "

"Does that mean sleeping or unconscious?" Rose frowned at the elf. In the past year and half she'd learned a fair bit of German. "Because if the Head finds out you've thrown her down the stairs again he'll—"

"Meister will _fräulein_ zu sehen!"

"Fine, fine! I'm going." She conceded, "But do me a favor and apparate Hugo back to St. Mungos."

" _Ja._ " The waifish elf scampered over and grabbed the irritable boy's hand. Hugo fought his grip, all the while moaning: " _Rose._ C'mon, let me try on my own. How am I supposed to learn if you never—"

In a snap they were gone, and Rose headed to see her boss.

For months she'd been investigating corrupt high-profilers along the lines of Rimbaud and helping the Head acquire a mass following via bribery and blackmail. Still it was mutual –he looked after her so long as she ran his missions and acquired his trinkets.

Granted her duties weren't safe or normal or even pleasant, but she'd fallen into rhythm with the lifestyle. The pay was decent. Hugo was recovering. Her magic was stronger than ever. She had _power_ and _authority_ over men and women twice her age (all of whom resented her for it). She thought less of her parents and more about the ever-uncertain future.

And the missions were _intriguing_. Rose had uncovered various threads leading to the underground renegade movement. Remnants of the Great War, anarchists, half-breeds, dark wizards, and other outcasts who, in the widespread chaos, had banded together to upturn Ministry rule. What they wanted after that was anyone's guess.

Still, Rose wasn't proud to be uprooting criminals or _anyone_. The girl with no allegiances cared little for patriotism or politics or laws made by those in power to suit themselves. The Ministry struggled to maintain control against different movements fueled by different agendas. Mobs, protestors, anarchists, magical creatures attacking wizards— death and violence were common outcomes, and in the end, people were only as good as the world allowed them to be.

Profuse amounts of smoke swept her face as she entered the Head's office.

"Weasley!" He jabbed his cigar at her. "I called for you hours ago! Where the hell have you been?"

"With my brother, sir. It's my day off—"

"If you intend to abuse the rare privilege I give you, I shall take it away," he said angrily. "Is that what you want?"

"No sir."

"Then sit down. We have much to discuss about your next mission." He threw her a file and relit his cigar. "Have you heard of a man named Draco Malfoy?"

"No sir." She lied.

"Pureblood. Ex-death Eater. Part of the Minister's inner social circle. High-powered attorney who works for many ministry officials here. Mr. Malfoy holds a remarkable amount of influence with his clients, which makes him a threat to my chances of holding office. In which case, I want you to invade the Malfoy Manor and find me something incriminating. Can you manage that?"

Her mouth was too dry to speak.

* * *

Rose found out Albus had been missing for a month.

 _Rose,  
Hope you're doing well. Thought you should know Mum kicked Albus out. I'm sure you can guess why. Anyway, we've moved to France to avoid the fallout, so I want you to look after my brother. We both know he'll find you sooner or later. Please keep him out of trouble._

-James

All other priorities fell apart.

* * *

Outside school, there was very little to interest Scorpius. The life of a young-rich-attractive pureblood revolved around balls and banquets and canoodling with other young-rich-attractive purebloods, and Scorpius was yet again reminded of why he'd chosen to pursue friendship with Albus in school.

Albus was a thinker, a dreamer, an _inventor_. The pulsating brilliance in a field of ordinary. He offered a different world to Scorpius, outside the adolescent scope. A truly _exciting_ one.

But also dangerous, given...recent events.

Still, Scorpius would be lying if he said he didn't miss the arsehole.

Most days Scorpius wanted to crawl into a hole and not come out—be it from boredom or a still-poignant guilt. His parents hadn't questioned him about Hogwarts shutting down, and were _incredibly_ understanding of his lilting moods and isolated walks, which made him feel all the more guilty. The mudanity of the evening made Rose Weasley's intrusion even more startling.

He spotted her, waiting for him at the corner during his regular walks. Cheeks tinged pink from cold, she waved over at him. "Hair's looking nice, Malfoy. Get new shampoo?"

He watched as she walked over, brows raised in astonishment. "How'd you find me?"

"I have access to the location of every magical entity with the Trace."

"Meaning you know where I am every second of the day?"

 _"Intimately."_

There was a pause.

"Think you're hot stuff, don't you?" he sneered, shoving his hands in his pockets, "Well, just cause you're a fancy shmancy auror now doesn't mean I'm going to fawn."

Rose caught up, walking alongside him. "Admit it, Malfoy. You're a teensy bit impressed with my stalking skills."

" _Please._ " Snow crunched under their feet as they crossed the street. "Who snuck through whose window in the middle of the night, Weasel?"

"That's breaking and entering." She dismissed. "Takes hardly any skill."

"Setting up a port-key takes more skill than opening up a file."

"Now you're just showing off."

His mouth curved. "And you're flirting."

"I don't flirt, Malfoy."

"You're a god-awful flirt." He gave a forlorn head shake. "But commenting on my hair means you're definitely trying to chat me up. Question is, of course, why?"

Rose took in a long draught of cold air, rubbing her hands together.

"So I heard about Hogwarts—" She began.

"Not talking about it," he murmured.

"We don't have to." She quickly tossed the subject. "Let's talk about the weather. Definitely too cold…wanna get a coffee?"

"Now you're _definitely_ flirting."

Moments later – they sat in a muggle restaurant, out, as it seemed, for the proverbial cup of coffee. Any onlooker would see it as a date, but Scorpius wasn't interested in pretending and neither was Rose. She cut to the chase.

"He's gone."

Scorpius jolted, spilling hot liquid down his shirt. Rose quickly scoured for napkins.

"What…" He winced at her touch. "…the hell? What do you mean he's gone?"

She told him about the letter. "I was hoping you'd know where he went."

"Haven't a clue," he said faintly, and looked up at her. "Can't you access his files and track him down?"

"He's seventeen now. He hasn't got the Trace anymore."

"Shit, shit shit…This is all _my_ fault." Scorpius ran a feverish hand through his hair. "He would've contact me if he wasn't pissed. If I hadn't—"

"Ma—"

"He's _Potter_ you know? He treats everyone like shit. Still, that's not—"

"Malf—"

"I left him alone. I never should've done that. God I'm such an idiot—"

"Malfoy _shut up._ "

Anxious grey met stern brown and held contact until Scorpius finally averted his gaze.

"Our last conversation didn't go too well," he admitted.

"You called him a heartless bastard too, huh," she said stonily.

There was a painful pause.

"So how do we find him?"

"We can't."

"So he'll have to turn up on his own then."

"I'm sure he's fine," she said. Scorpius gave her a strained smile.

"Bet he's laughing at us right now, the insufferable git." He snorted, then found himself riling up once more. " _Bloody fucking_ Potter. Can you picture him? Sitting on his fucking throne, henchmen running around doing whatever he says while women feed him grapes."

"He has a horrid personality. Merlin knows what girls see in him."

"To hell with girls I say."

"I mean he's not even that good-looking," Rose persisted. "Yeah he's smart but besides that what's he got, anyways? Besides that silky hair—"

"-and those green eyes—"

"—granted his smile is nice—"

"—yeah, whenever he _does_ smile-"

"—and those cheekbones—"

"Damn those cheekbones." Scorpius slammed his cup on the table, "I've always hated those cheekbones."

They chuckled, diffusing some of the surrounding tension, neither of them wanting to think about the worst case scenario of something actually _happening_ to Albus. And he sure as hell didn't deserve it, the manipulative bastard. How they hated that they _couldn't_ hate him.

"Never thought we'd share an understatement about something, Weasel," Scorpius said, looking at her with a soft smile.

Rose averted her gaze. "I actually didn't come here to talk about Albus."

He leaned forward. "Go on."

Starting awkwardly, she wasn't sure how she intended to go about it. _Listen Malfoy, There's something I need to tell you. I'm not like other aurors. See I run…special operations._ He listened carefully as she explained the nature of her occupation. The theft, blackmail, gigantic political conspiracy - his eyes widened in all the right places. She half-expected him to stand up and leave, but his gaze was steady, not faltering a moment from hers. Why was he taking it so well?

"I get it. I do," he said quietly.

"No you don't." She scowled at him. "You're silently judging me, and if you're not, then you're as twisted as I am."

 _"Weasel."_

"I'm not looking for approval, Malfoy." She glowered.

" _Then shut up already,_ " he snapped, "Don't believe me if you don't want to, all right? But I get it. I really do… you're doing what you have to. Someone told me there are two kinds of people in the world. Those that survive and those that don't."

Rose frowned. "That's the single most depressing thing I've heard."

"Sorry, I'll go for something more romantic next time."

She ignored the playful grin slipping over his features. He tugged at her arm to show he was kidding. " _Lighten up._ "

Rose didn't smile. "Next Friday I'll be investigating your dad. I need you make sure I can't find anything that might be incriminating."

"My dad's clean. He's been for a while."

"You're not listening to me," she hissed, irritated. "I didn't ask you if your father's involved in anything. I'm asking you _to make sure I can't find anything."_

It took Scorpius a few moments to make sense of it.

"You're helping me." He watched as she stood. "Why?"

"I know what it's like to lose parents," she muttered, drawing on her coat. "I wouldn't wish it on anyone."

His ears reddened. "I—hey, thanks Weasel."

She nodded. On the way to the door, Scorpius called after her.

"So I can tell my mum you're staying for dinner, right?"

* * *

Turned out that Scorpius had _not_ been kidding. In hindsight Rose should've seen it coming, given the casual way he approached the revelation about her job or that he had willingly been friends with Albus in the past. Or the ridiculous affections he harbored for her. Signs of a twisted mind. Infiltrating the large manor had not been a difficulty, nor flitting room to room (keeping dark detector settings on low. Rose didn't _want_ to find anything). But a hand grabbed her from behind as she trailed through the antechamber and somehow, by the end of it, Rose found herself in the most unrealistic predicament of her life.

Having dinner with the Malfoys.

Silence held over the table. She kept glancing toward the exit, with apprehension that at any moment her superior would come barging and drag her to Azkaban with an _I knew you would screw up. What did I tell you about trusting boys?_

There was the fear she'd lose her job, almost certainty this was all a big trick (or dream), confusion at whether the hand grazing her arm was mocking or reassuring, and self-control summoned not to jump the boy attached to it and beat him senseless in front of his parents.

Astoria smiled at her from across the table. "You haven't touched your food, dear. Don't you like duck?"

"Not hungry," she murmured, ignoring Scorpius' intent gaze. He kicked her under the table. She returned his kick with more force.

"We've heard a lot about you Rose dear. Haven't we, Draco?"

Painfully summoned by his wife, the platinum-blond haired man looked up and locked eyes with Rose. His expression looked as awkward as how Rose felt. "Indeed we have."

"Scorpius talks a great deal about you," Astoria gushed.

"No I don't," Scorpius grumbled. "She means from the papers."

"Oh hush, Scorpy. You've been on about her since Fourth year—"

"Mum, _shut up_ —"

"Did you find anything in our house, Rose?" Draco interrupted his wife and son.

Silence fell over the table again.

"I didn't intend to, sir," she replied.

"And what will you say in your report? Will they believe you?"

" _Dad_ ," Scorpius warned.

"Quiet." Draco shot his son a glare. "I won't go to Azkaban just because you fancy the girl."

"That's not—"

"None of this goes on report," Rose assured him. "What I do remains off-record. If I say nothing was found, then nothing was found."

"Good." He nodded, cleaning his silverware. On his wrist Rose could see the faded shadow of the dark mark. "I hoped my past would leave my family alone. I didn't want any part in the last war… I don't want any in the next."

Rose could hear the remorse in his voice and instantly felt sympathetic. She had heard stories of his role in the war from her parents, but – at least the way her mum described it – it appeared that Draco Malfoy had simply been with the wrong side of things. Victim of circumstance. Wary perpetrator. Brave coward. Misinterpreted by all. He was as she was.

"I'm sorry, sir," she said quietly.

He looked over at her, brows raised in surprise by the sincerity of this remark. No doubt he was questioning her fiery Weasley roots. But if there was anything Rose had learned in service to her tyrannical boss, it was self-control. Oftentimes subsiding your tongue in the face of disdain took more courage than mouthing off.

The Malfoys had tolerated her - a person of taboo reputation - at their dinner table and she could not overlook that. Rose counted her blessings carefully.

"I'm sorry for disturbing your evening, Mr. Malfoy." She stood up, swatting away Scorpius' arm. "I don't mean to get anyone in trouble. I can leave if you want."

Silent urgent exchange passed between the Malfoys.

"Don't be silly, darling," Astoria said kindly.

"Stay." Scorpius persisted.

"Sit down, sit down." Draco Malfoy waved an irritable hand. "I can't kick out someone who's helped us. Even if you _are_ a Weasley."

"I'm a Granger too, sir," she said sheepishly. He groaned. The whole table chuckled. Scorpius tugged at her arm with a soft smile, but Rose wasn't ready to forgive him yet. Still, she sat down and the rest of dinner passed in a more pleasant – if surreal – manner.

Trust was a privilege she hadn't indulged in a while and so Rose took a chance.

Draco and Astoria asked her about her brother, living arrangements, and the riskier topic of her occupation. They marveled at her passing the auror exams. They _sympathized_ ; they were parents after all. It had been a while that Rose had been around normal adults, those not seeking to take advantage of her. It made her hopelessly reminiscent of _her_ parents, saddening her greatly. Having learned to revel in solitude, company unsettled her.

Neither Malfoy brought up her resurrection magic—Scorpius has schooled them well.

Conversation drifted and Draco began to talking about his past.

" -and my parents were just _awful_ ," he nodded toward his wife, pouring himself wine. "Like I always tell Astoria, we can't help who our parents are. You needn't worry about it, Rose."

" _Dad_ ," Scorpius warned, but Rose had already heard.

"What do you mean?"

"You never wondered how yours died?" The man rose his brows, "Here I thought you knew. Not as sharp as your mum are you?"

"Know _what_?"

A combination of confusion and subdued anger laced her tone.

"Your parents never died in the fire; the ministry fabricated that lie. Truth is that their bodies were never found at all." Draco Malfoy gave her a strange look. "I'm surprised you don't know this, Rose."

So was she.

* * *

Notes:

 _People were only as good as the world allowed them to be.—this line is paraphrased from The Dark Knight._

Meister will fräulein zu sehen— Master wants to see miss.

Schläft—sleeping.


	8. Reverse

_Their bodies were carried away in caskets—she had seen them!—so how could it have been fake?_

 _—a lie, because faces can be falsified can't they? Polyjuice is a prime example—_

 _—if only she'd looked closer, if only she hadn't been so taken by grief, she would've spotted the irregularities. Albus commented on them—_

 _—Rose, no one's mentioned how the fire happened. Rose, there are burn marks all over the bodies but not the faces. Rose, your father wasn't wearing that shirt when he left. Rose, doesn't your mum's hair color seem a bit dark? Stop it, Al, it's probably just the light—_

Sounds of a clanging shovel reverberated through the dead winter air. Tilled soil, wilting plants, mildew of stone—these were the scents that surrounded her, urging, pushing her further into the earth. Specks of dirt shot at her with every heaving blow, like thousands of little bullets. Her eyes burned from the vicious combination of cold and decay.

Sweat crept onto her skin—she stripped down to her essentials to continue digging. Hours must've passed but time had lost meaning to her; only inches and feet mattered now. Dirt found its way into her ears, mouth, hair, armpits, and underwear. Despite their brutal conditioning, her muscles screamed of exhaustion. She didn't stop. She couldn't even if she wanted to.

The metal of her shovel clanged as she hit something solid. Now she was on her knees, clawing and tearing through the dirt with her hands. Bloody knuckles. Snapped fingernails. Every particle of earth was like a speck of her sanity tossed away.

She pulled out their caskets and pried them open.

Mum.

 _Empty._

Dad.

 _Empty._

Her throat must've burst—only explanation for the wretched sobs that tore out of her mouth. But she quickly wiped her face, telling herself this was neither the time nor place to plunge into hysterics. It was dark now, very dark and she had to finish the dirty deed. Yes— complete the triumvirate.

Shovel clenched in convulsing hand, she approached Uncle Harry's resting ground.

Now she would defile the grave of the most revered man in the Wizarding World.

She dug. Frozen mud flew everywhere.

There was a clang at shovel meeting metal.

Flies exploded from the casket as soon as the lid buckled and her shoulders fell, in dismay.

Because there was no body there either.

Nothing but an eleven-inch piece of holly.

* * *

Rose and I had become more than simple acquaintances. On day two, I had enough perspective into her life to feel as if I'd known her for years. I felt as if our meeting was predestined, and that perhaps in a separate dimension, we might've been soul mates.

Not of the hearts, exactly, but the mind.

We were two halves concerned with a similar truth. Which made me brave enough to prompt discussion on her parents.

"They were heroes Mr. Walker, what is there to say?" She gave me a gravelly smile. No doubt it was a deeply personal topic. "Their lives were riddled with admirers. Their funeral had _thousands_ of mourners. "

"But there's more," I implored. "Unspoken truths."

"Every family has its closet of skeletons," she replied.

"Yours quite literally."

Silence.

"It came with the territory, Mr. Walker."

"Did you and Albus know then?"

"About the secrets?"

"About the _magic_."

The old woman pressed her lips together. "If you mean to ask, Mr. Walker, whether at seventeen we knew what our parents had set in motion, I'm afraid not."

"But things would've been different if you had?"

"Very much so."

"Would you even have gone looking for them?" I asked, finally.

It was an unfair question, and Rose turned a cold cheek to me.

"The _what ifs_ and _would haves_ …there is no solace in such thoughts, Mr. Walker. The past cannot be changed any more than the future can be predicted. It was clever execution, I think, that made us think for the time that we were masters of our own fate. We were not. You must understand. It is perhaps the most pivotal lesson I learned. You must understand that _history will always repeat itself_."

I'd heard that somewhere before.

* * *

"Are you listening Rose?"

The seven-year old girl sitting on her dad's shoulders stopped playing with his red curls.

"Sure Mum," she giggled.

"Then what did I just say?"

Something about Herbert."

Hermione's forehead creased.

"Herpo the foul, love. The earliest known dark wizard? I was talking about his contributions to basilisk breeding."

"That's what I meant."

"Wakey wakey and pay attention to Mum, Rosie," Ron said, spinning her around. Rose shrieked with laughter. "Put me down, I have to pee!"

Grinning, Ron put the girl down and allowed her to prance away. He then went to sit next to his exhausted wife. He put an arm around her, chuckling.

"It's not working," Hermione sighed, rubbing her temples. "She doesn't pay attention."

"Cut her some slack, Hermione. She's seven and, honestly, history is a pretty boring subject,"

"History is _not_ boring."

"Course not. And Percy isn't the biggest twat in the world."

"This isn't funny, Ronald." She pursed her lips. "Mind you, this is exactly the sort of attitude that's discouraging her development."

" _Discouraging her development_? Hermione, do you hear yourself? This is our daughter we're talking about!"

"She's _gifted_ ," Hermione whispered fiercely. "Just last week she used your wand to transfigure Crookshanks into a teapot. If we don't cultivate her talents now-

"I think it just shows that no one likes your ruddy cat," Ron snorted. "And you're not cultivating _anything_ by boring her to bits."

Hermione folded her arms, annoyed. "How's Harry teaching Albus then?"

"He skipped theory. Only makes him do practicals."

A pause.

"You're joking."

"Apparently the boy's a natural." Ron shrugged. "You've seen him haven't you?"

Another pause.

"I have."

* * *

 _Prophet Headlines:_

 _Anarchists raid the Minister's house_

 _Fifteen Aurors die in rally_

 _Giants break peace treaty, join with centaurs._

 _Total count: seventeen Azkaban escapees_

 _Quidditch cup canceled this year: Dark Wizard threats keep people from going._

The Head had assigned her to the main task force to compensate for the severe scarcity of aurors. It had plenty to do with recent deaths and little with how much he trusted her. Sitting in her cubicle, Rose rubbed the back of her neck. Her uniform skirt felt too short and she pulled at its hem to try to lengthen the fabric. She felt uncomfortable being in broad view of others. Important people passed by, immersed in important conversations but their gazes lingered on her. Bold. Inquiring. Judgmental. It felt like the deaths she'd caused at Diagon Alley were permanently etched on her face.

Working in the shadows was more preferable to this public damnation.

Strange looks greeted her as she passed through the halls of her new department to deliver some papers to her squad superior, an anal retentive woman named Patricia Hummel.

The woman regarded the papers disdainfully.

"What the hell are these, Weasley?"

"Arrest orders for the men who attacked Officer Highmore, ma'am."

"I do believe I asked for these _yesterday_."

"I do believe the approval notices required signatures from fourteen officials, most of whom didn't get here until this morning," Rose said sourly, "As severely understaffed as we are, I do the best with what I have. _Ma'am_."

"I don't appreciate that tone, Weasley. Unless you would like to be reported—"

"Then report me," Rose snapped. As the Hummel's mouth fell open, she turned and stormed back to her desk. She knew she'd regret her words when they reached the Head, but she didn't care. Lately, it had gotten increasingly harder to feign civility against unwarranted abuse. She had to tread carefully around the Head, but lower bosses like Hummel, no, she didn't care what they thought. Her emotions had been on edge lately, with the recent discovery about her parents.

There were no bodies in their graves.

This meant the bodies at their funeral hadn't been real. Which meant her parents never perished in a fire. Which meant that for some reason or other the Ministry faked the whole ordeal…Hugo thought she was being mental when she told him what she thought.

"C'mon, Rose. Be logical," he had implored. "If they were alive, don't you think they would have contacted us?"

"Look, I _know_ how it sounds—"

"It's asking for trouble," he sighed. She could tell he wished she'd never told him. "Let's just drop it, Rose. You focus on your job and I'll focus on getting better."

The small sadness from him drew out to Rose. He was such a delicate boy. She was a teenage girl, and it was embarrassing how much she loved him, how beautiful he was to her in his frailty. He was as scrawny as he'd been since at twelve and there was a distinguishable lack of masculine growth. She wanted to wrap her arms around his smallness and shelter him from all the problems they were having to face. He didn't belong there, with her. He was almost too pure.

And right. It was foolish to risk their happiness on such a faint possibility. He didn't want to face the crushing disappointment with finding that their parents were truly dead. Hugo was right to look to the future, where they actually had a shot at surviving. Rose needed to stop living in the past.

They dropped the matter, but it still festered in the back of her mind.

Rose plowed through the rest of the paperwork in disciplined silence.

She thought about asking the Head about her parents but decided against it. Though in some twisted way he had ultimately helped her out, their alliance wasn't unbreakable, and Rose feared his reaction. She wasn't brave enough for confrontation—she wouldn't risk her job. She wouldn't risk Hugo.

Not to mention she had another plan.

An accented voice interrupted her thinking.

"Don't mind Hummel. She has an inferiority-complex when it comes to pretty girls."

She looked up. A young man with thick eyebrows stood over her cubicle with two cups of coffee and a crooked grin.

"Yaakov Gachevska, from the Bulgarian division." He passed her one of the cups and held out his hand. "Friends call me Kovy."

She regarded the gesture with suspicion but shook the hand. "Thanks, but I'm not interested in making friends."

"Heard you were transferred to this hellish job like me." He shrugged. "Thought we could bond over our horrible luck, at least for the next six months that I'm stuck here."

Rose had no interest in _bonding_. She raised a brow at him, "Do you know who I am?"

"Guess you're kind of famous right?" He grinned. "The Bulgarian papers call you Kralitsata na smŭrtta. _Queen of death_ … it's kind of sexy. My brother thinks anyway."

Rose wasn't impressed. "So why were you transferred to England?"

"Same reason all us transfers were." He lounged against her desk, drinking his coffee. "Countries like Bulgaria with a vested interest in England are concerned about its safety, given all the riots."

"Vested interest?"

"Sure." He nodded at her. He seemed eager to divulge in chatter and put off his paperwork. "World peace and all that bullshit. England's the hub of the magical world. What happens here will inevitably spread to Bulgaria. So, really, I'm just here to make sure you people don't screw it up for everyone."

Rose bit her lip. "What, you think there'll be war?"

"I think it all depends on whether—"

The ministry break-in alarm sounded, interrupting all activity on the floor. Aurors shot up and rushed towards the elevators. Yaakov shot her a grim look. "C'mon."

They jammed themselves into the elevator along with the Aurors. Pushed into the very back with various elbows wedged into her ribs, Rose listened to her heart slam repeatedly against her chest, her breathing ragged and heavy like all the air around her was diffusing. She squeezed her wand in an effort to calm herself.

Dueling in school was something she excelled at because of Albus. He pushed her to become better than him, and in doing so, tapped into a frenzy neither of them could truly explain. Provoked with malicious words, she held nothing back. In turn he threw her against walls with the very same destructive energy. It was all under the guise of practice, but for the most part, they bloodied and bruised each other because they could. It was fueled by a raw emotional energy, teetering on the edge of feral. It had little to do with technique and everything with the glimmer of knives behind his crooked smile—he might eat her whole unless she stopped him.

But Rose wasn't a violent person by nature. Not to mention, all her missions for the Head had required stealth and trickery up till now, and so she had never faced an actual opponent head-on.

Aurors fled out of the elevator as soon as the doors burst open, edging and elbowing past each other to jump into the battle. Wand gripped in hand, Rose stood watching the fight unravel.

The long and very splendid hall was _tarnished_. Blood smattered against walls, creating bullet-like striations. Curses were being shot spanning the distance between the gilded fireplaces. _Expulso! Bombarda! Impedimental!_ The once-peacock blue ceiling had stopped relaying notices and was now blank. Magical waters from the grand atrium in the center of the hall had stilled as the intruders shot out from behind.

It happened in waves- aurors she was both familiar and unfamiliar with threw themselves fully into battle while others held defensive positions. She saw Hummel dodge a green hex just as _incarcerous_ hit her from behind, roping her feet together and yank her into the air. Yaakov was engaged in duel with a dark-haired woman and, for a moment, Rose just stood watching him cast a powerful shield charm.

"WEASLEY!"

The Head hurtled out of nowhere and rammed her to ground with his shoulder as a curse flew over them. She staggered backwards, unable to voice a coherent thank you. "Get moving!" he snarled at her, then lifted himself up and disappeared back into the battle.

Rose sat stunned until the movements around her jolted her awake and she leapt to her feet. Bodies fell around her as she ran, dodging any stray hexes. Some woman lunged at her feet, and Rose, unsure whether she was an attacker or fatally injured, kicked her away. She ran as great a distance as she could, and dodged around a nearby pillar. Away from sight. She pressed her body against it and closed her eyes, her heart pounding against her chest.

Now out of sight, she listened to the nearby sounds of fighting, the slashing movements of wands, bodily thuds against pavement, and loud ear-splitting shrieks. She could hear the Head bellow out orders, in a surprising display of heroism. Rose closed her eyes and tried to picture the litter of corpses afterwards, piercing the so-long-suppressed memory of what had taken place at Diagon Alley. She couldn't deny herself of it much longer-this was her fault. On the most fundamental level, all violence was her fault. She knew she should jump into battle but her feet were rigid, frozen like blocks of pavement. She was scared. She was really scared. She felt guilt for her fear and an obliterating amount of shame for lacking her parent's courage. Ron and Hermione Weasley had vanquished the dark lord while their cowardly daughter couldn't even manage her own mess.

Still, _Auror_ was a title she held out of desperation, not some misguided call to duty. She didn't want to risk her life for the same people who nearly sentenced her to Azkaban. She didn't want to protect the institution responsible for her parent's disappearances. She didn't know who to believe, what to protect, which side to take, who she even was in the large scope of this conflict between government and dissenters. It wasn't her fight. Not yet.

For now Rose would do nothing.

* * *

It was three years before she'd even step foot in Hogwarts and her mum was having her read about the 1938 uprising in Europe that predated the rise of Voldemort. It was very boring.

An eight-year-old Rose looked up from her book.

"Do you think Hugo will ever get better?"

"Have you finished the passage on Grindelwald yet?" Hermione tapped the page in the book with a pencil.

"Yes _Mum_."

"Tell me about it"

"It's about why he thinks wizards are superior to muggles. He reads Darwin's theory of natural selection and makes connections to Eugene's socks"

"It's _eugenics_ , love. With the way Grindewald employed the concept, it means— _Rose stop picking your nose_ —it means eliminating people with undesired traits. For Grindewald, basically those without magical capabilities. He used it justify his plan of committing mass genocide"

"That's what I said."

"Very well." Hermione gave her daughter a gentle smile, "But do you understand why it's wrong?"

"Hurting people is bad."

"Yes love, but why is it wrong to hate people based on biological differences?"

Rose was momentarily distracted by a fly in the room.

"Umm...Grandmum and Granddad are muggles and they're really nice. They always send Hugo those tin biscuits he likes so much."

"Besides Grandmum and Granddad, dear. They're family. You have to love family."

"I don't have to love family. I don't love Al."

" _Rose_."

"It's true!" came an indignant cry. "He's wicked when he thinks no one's watching him. He's the one who stole Uncle Percy's wand—"

"Just yesterday you two were playing together. What happened to that?"

The small girl shook her head, her pigtails wagging.

"He's _evil_ , Mum."

"No eight-year old is evil."

"Albus is."

"I don't want to hear this," Hermione said sternly, "Albus has his reasons and I don't want you to treat him the way your cousins do."

Albus wasn't well-liked in the family, due to his aloof and distant nature. If Fred wasn't hiding dungbombs with his toys and under his clothes then Dominique and Lucy were knocking over his food at full family dinners, then, proceeding to snicker about it under the tablecloth. Not that he didn't return the treatment, and often more violently. The more their cousins treated him like an outsider, the worse he grew—it was only around choice adults that he exhibited restraint.

"Albus acts out because he has a lot of pressure on him," Hermione explained gently, "He's very smart, just like you. And the two of you will make great friends when you're older."

" _Do I have to?_ "

Her mother didn't reply, turning a page in their textbook as they moved on to another topic.

* * *

Following the disastrous events of the self-imposed dinner with Rose and his parents, Scorpius felt like an idiot. The vivid recollection of his father's words, Rose's following reaction, the painful clench of her brow struggling to contain her distress. Despite her abrupt, near-hostile dismissal of him, he had followed and tried to talk with her. Outside the confinement of the Malfoy Manor her inhibitions had dropped, and she was able to cry freely.

He recalled sitting beside her, speaking softly, consolingly, but his words had no lasting effect. His coat was gone, thrown over _her_ shoulders—she didn't noticed. It was cold. So cold his hands had blistered and he rubbed them together for warmth. She rebuffed him when he reached for her hands. In that instance she didn't want to be comforted and he didn't know what to say.

Then there was the recent Ministry break-in that had set the vast majority of government workers – along with his father – on edge. His healer mother, who was having work double shifts to compensate for the recent influx of patients, talked about them moving. _We can go to France, Draco. My sister won't mind us staying with her. And Scorpy can finish his Seventh Year at their boy's academy._ But his dad would hear none of it. _We'll be fine, Tori. Malfoy Manor's the safest place in all of England._ Like Scorpius, he didn't want to leave his home.

Though Scorpius also had _other_ reasons.

He stood outside the Head's house, desperate to make amends with Rose. He loitered for a few moments under the street lamp rehearsing sensible things he might say to her. _Weasel I'm sorry about what happened at dinner. Truth is that I didn't know about your parents either. I would have told you, I swear. I know it must be hard to take in_ —no no, too formal. She would rebuff him again. _I want to talk to you. I want to comfort you. I heard about the ministry attack. You must be miserable_ –idiot! That's _not_ what you say to a girl when she's miserable! _I know it's stupid and inappropriate but I think about you all the time. At night I fantasize about us_ —it was hopeless. She might very well throw him out the window.

He climbed up to her window and tapped as he had done before. There was no shuffling of footsteps in response and his heartbeat accelerated. Was she not home? Did he make a huge mistake coming there? Then, hearing the distant sounds of running water, he relaxed. Using his wand he unlocked the window and carefully pulled himself into her room. Her living quarters were as diminutive and pathetic as he had last seen them. The bed, tousled and still-warm to the touch; she'd just woken from a night of restless sleep. He could picture her body twisting and turning in it all night long, the smallness of her trapped beneath blankets. Sounds of running water continued from the bathroom and while impatiently waiting, Scorpius was compelled to lay in her bed. He positioned her head exactly where he pictured hers—it was silly—perhaps imagining where her legs grazed the bedsheets or she pressed her mouth onto the pillow.

His hand struck something papery; he reached under her pillow and pulled out the wad of documents, scattering them on her bed. Notes. Handwritten potion ingredients and instructions. It wasn't her handwriting but he recognized the perfect cursive script. He had copied many homework assignments from it—

Abruptly, there was a click-clack and the bathroom door opened. Scorpius looked up to see Rose staring at him, her hair damp, body wrapped in a towel.

"How did you—"

He sprang off her bed. "The window."

"Right."

They stared at each other for a moment. Scorpius could feel his face burn. It was actually ironic. He'd caught her in a private moment and _he_ was the one embarrassed. He tried to tear his gaze away from her half-concealed body. He had known her since they were First Years transfiguring frogs into goblets, but he had never really looked at her like this. Rose had a strange but enduring quality that allowed her to take form with whatever she wore. Clothes wore _her_. She'd look frustrating pretty in a gown, plain-yet-endearing in her school outfit, cold and prominent in her auror robes, unapparent in her street clothes. She was familiar to him but also impersonal. He knew her but he didn't really know her at all until now.

Dyed-brown hair matted over her scalp. Now that she stood clothes less, expressionless (or shocked. He couldn't be sure), white sheet covering only the absolute essentials and hugging all the dips and valleys, Scorpius felt in the presence of something forbidden. Like he had just tip-toed past a delicate membrane. Past the coy liners and snippiness and facetiousness and everything imagined but never duly expressed. It wasn't sensual—well not all of it—but a broach into a more intimate sphere of consciousness. It was reckless.

But it wasn't what Scorpius had come to discuss right then.

"I wanted to talk to you." He gasped.

"Yes."

"It couldn't wait."

"I see that."

He blushed visibly, looking at the floor, the ceiling, the window, everywhere but her as she raised an eyebrow at him. She then walked over to her closet.

"You came to see how I'm doing after the Ministry attack," she muttered, rummaging through her clothes, "Well I assure you I'm perfectly fine" -undergarments first –"can handle myself" –buttoned up her pants- "just another _damn_ " -pulled on her jumper- "occupational hazard."

 _Then quit_. He scowled into the floor. "We both know you're a bit accident-prone Weasel. Can't blame my mum for worrying."

" _You're really using your mum?_ "

"For some reason you made an impression with her." He rolled his eyes. "I personally thought you were a bit rude at dinner. Stiff and arrogant. Not to mention you're a right mess when you're crying, all puffy-eyed and incoherent. It'd be cute if it wasn't so obnoxious."

"You should be arrested for being such an awful flirt."

He saw the edge of her mouth lift and was secretly pleased she wasn't pissed with him.

"Still not as bad as you, Weasel," he sneered. "Prancing around me in a towel. My, my, what would ickle Hugo think?"

"You're the one who doesn't know where to look." She shot back.

"Stop flirting Weasel. I'm going to get the wrong idea." He grinned, and looked back at the documents he'd scattered over bed, "And never mind that, tell me about these potions instructions you've nicked off Albus."

Her brow tersed. "They're borrowed."

"Right." He gave an impatient eye-roll and lounged back on her bed. "So go on, what do they have to do with, well, _whatever you're up to?_ "

Rose pulled out a wand. At first Scorpius thought she was going to hex him, but when she sat down next to him, he realized it wasn't even hers.

"It's _his_ , you know. My uncle's….it's the only thing I found in Godric's Hollow."

It took him a moment to make sense of this. "You—you dug up his _grave_?"

"I dug up all three, Malfoy."

" _Bleeding hell_ ," he cursed and glared at her. "Are you _mental_? Have you completely lost it?"

"Yes, I think so," she said, in a quiet voice.

His surge of anger suddenly expunged.

He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. "Sorry. Stupid thing to say. So there were no bodies at all?"

"I've checked their files in the Missing Wizards department as well and they aren't marked dead."

"So what does that mean?"

People don't just disappear into thin air," she said, her voice a grave whisper. "Wherever they are, dead or alive, the Ministry's behind it. I need to figure out what happened. I need to retrace their steps. I can use Uncle Harry's wand to do that, and the potion—well it doesn't exist yet but _theoretically_ -"

"You plan on using a potion that doesn't exist?"

"Well obviously I have to make it exist first," she said impatiently.

Scorpius raised his brows. "So is this potion, erm, dangerous?"

"Yes and no but that's not the point." She said irritably, "It's difficult but not impossible to make. The instructions are easy enough to follow. Ingredients...the major thing I need is time turner dust. And Albus."

"What?"

"I need Albus. It's his potion."

* * *

"Mum, I'm going out," a fourteen-year old Rose called. "I'll be home before midnight."

Ron looked up from his chess match with Hugo. "Is there a boy involved in this?"

"No boys, dad," she chuckled. "Just Al."

"Albus is a boy." Hugo pointed out in a cheeky voice, while his dad sneakily reached across the board and stole his bishop. Turning back to the match, Hugo shouted in outrage

As father and son bantered, Hermione emerged from the kitchen. "So what are you and Albus up to tonight?"

"Just going to see a movie."

"Can I assume that cauldron is for popcorn?"

In retrospect, Rose had known attempting to carry a giant shopping bag out the front door would be suspicious. _Nothing_ got past her mum.

"I don't like it when you lie to us, Rose."

"I'm sorry."

"If you're making potions, you tell me that."

"It's all academic, Mum," she said, trying to sound earnest. "It's practically studying. You told me to study with Al."

Hermione raised an eyebrow, "Is this one illegal?"

An owlish blink. "Not explicitly."

"Take your wand, Rosie." Ron called, holding Hugo over his shoulder and spinning him around. The boy whined about being manhandled. "Streets are dangerous at night. I don't want some mugger tailing you."

"Don't be silly, dad." Rose rolled her eyes. "Al would break his jaw."

Ron and Hermione exchanged a startled look at this, a look that went relatively unnoticed by their children. But just as Ron was about to say something Hermione stopped him.

"Your father's right. Take your wand, dear."

Later that night after Ron had carried Hugo up the stairs (he wasn't able to climb stairs at this point) and Hermione had tucked him in bed, the parents sat together and discussed a private matter.

"She's spends far too much time with that boy doing things she shouldn't be—"

"This is what you wanted, Hermione. You told her to befriend him, remember? And this is a normal part of growing up—didn't we get up to a couple of illegal things when we were kids?"

"It's not the same, Ron. Harry and us—well we were trying to save people. Do _good_ things."

"Don't you think she's trying to save someone as well?" Ron glanced toward their son's room. It was no secret that Hugo's dystrophy would continue worsening until his almost inevitable death. Soon he would be in a wheelchair, and then after, in a cot at St. Mungo's.

"But that's not her responsibility, that's _ours_."

"We won't be around forever, Hermione."

Silence.

"You raised her clever." Ron stroked his wife's hair off her shoulder. "It's only natural she's not interested in the normal things. It's only natural she wants to save her brother. It's only natural she's more fascinated by potions and magic than she is by boys. Not that I'm complaining, mind you."

"She'll be alone, Ron. She won't have many friends."

"She'll have the one she absolutely needs."

 _If all goes well_. Hermione rested her head on her husband's shoulder. "They won't be anything like us." Her voice was a grave whisper. "They may grow to hate us someday. Can you live with that?"

"We don't have a choice."

Meanwhile a fourteen-year old boy waited in a barren field atop a motorcycle he'd nicked off family friend Teddy Lupin— not that the dolt would've noticed. Albus knew the older boy would be too _preoccupied_ with his veela girlfriend that particular evening to notice him flying away with it (though as a precaution Albus had jinxed their doors and windows shut from the outside and cast _muffliato_ so no one would hear their incessant banging until the morning. A problem for another day).

Albus wore a thick woolen jacket over his usual cotton shirt and trouser combo. Fifteen impatient minutes passed before his red-haired cousin finally showed up.

"You're late." He gave her a dull stare. "And underdressed. I told you it's cold where we're going."

"I thought we weren't apparating."

He'd calculated the distance and increased the motorcycle's maximum speed to accommodate it.

"Don't have to. We'll easily make it by dawn. Granted no bathroom breaks."

"I told Mum I'd be back by midnight."

"Why'd you lie to your mum, Rosie?"

She glowered at his smirking, but allowed him to pull her aboard the motorcycle. They flew over small collections of lights, then mountains and valleys and villages, and finally long murky spans of water. Twilight fell; the sky turned to a burnt hazel littered with spots of silver and she could hear Albus murmur an appreciative _beautiful_. She buried her face into his shoulder and clung to him for dear life, her fingers digging into his ribs.

"Still afraid of flying, Rosie?" She could hear him chuckling.

"Shut up." She muttered into his shoulder. "I hate you I hate you...And I should probably mention my mum hates you too."

"Been telling mumsie wicked things about me, have you?"

"Don't have to. She's smarter than you think."

"Thinks I'm corrupting her daughter?"

"You couldn't corrupt me if you tried, you bastard."

She could picture the self-satisfied smirk flit across his face.

"Good thing I'm not trying."

They swerved violently to the right, a move Rose was certain he only pulled to make her cling tighter. He was downright sadistic, relishing any sort of occasion he got make her helpless and exploit that dependence on him. And he enjoyed the fact that there was one else she'd spend her free time with.

That was the thing about Albus. He was _magnetic_. Time and time again Rose failed to make friends simply because no one measured up to him, in his absurdity, in his absolute genius. Normal people with their boring lives and hobbies and conversations – Rose needed someone with whom she could brainstorm and discuss theories and chase after dreams and feel brilliant and special. It was fascinating to be in his company. His pace was fast, his conversation sparse and to-the-point, he didn't care about people and events—only ideas. He enraptured her mind as fast as he ignited her anger.

"So this potion you've outlined will have healing properties?" she queried.

"I did not say that. If you were listening I said that a _possible use_ for penguin genitilia may very well be neural hypertrophy. Read about it in Anticoch's notes. But no, my potion isn't for your brother."

"But we should make a potion for him, Al," she insisted. "What's the point of all this research of you can't make some profound impact with it huh? The greater good?"

"Patience Rose, patience," he cooed, as one would with a small child. "Now I never told you what my potion's about did I?"

Rose wanted to know why it required penguin genitilia. "I'm not killing any penguins for your potion, Al."

He shrugged carelessly. "You can watch."

They flew over mounds of silken ice, glittering under the moon's mournful gaze. Rose stared beneath her in rapturous awe. Meanwhile Albus rambled on about his potion.

"First thing, it has the elemental structure of a pensive. But I'll substitute floo powder for memory dust, and the reaction will require a magical catalyst—an item personal to the subject of interest."

"Socks?"

"Socks aren't magical, Rose," he said impatiently.

"I know. I'm just trying to piss you off."

"You're remarkably proficient at it."

Rose readjusted her arms around his waist, resting her chin on his shoulder.

"Sorry, go on. So what's the rationale for the floo powder?"

"The potion will allow you to visit past locations rather than memories. More specifically the locations at which the item was last used. Floo powder takes care of transportation. Reversing the object's locational memory is done through—"

"—time turner dust."

"So you're been paying attention," he murmured, giving her a quick glance. "Impressive."

Rose beamed at this rare compliment. In truth she was always paying attention to Albus.


	9. Kill

Half past midnight and the castle was asleep. Under the full moon's glare, a fourteen-year old boy and girl traipsed through the Forbidden depths of the Forest, latter chasing behind the former. She called for him in the childish way she often did— _C'mon Al, wait up!_ —but he paid her no heed. Puberty gave him a significant physical advantage; he moved at a pace impossible for her to match. He wasn't sure what compelled him to throw over his invisibility cloak and disappear into the darkness. An unfair trick, and she would call him a cheater for it, but Albus didn't care what his cousin thought.

He watched her from a distance as she grasped at thin air, violently, angrily, trying to extract him from their surroundings, yelling obscenities. Her jaw was clenched, her eyes dark and fierce. He could imagine her throat constricting from his painful abandonment— _how pathetic_ — and suppressed the sharp elation that her fear stirred in him. He wanted to punish her. He had been ignoring her all day to mask his irrational fury. And now, amid treacherous trees, they would finally have their confrontation.

A spell disarmed her and she frantically swung around for the source.

Of course, it was not _all_ her fault. Barry Goldwin had played a significant hand in her foreseeable demise. The older boy had sandy hair, the sort of smile that made girls blush, and a rather unfortunate penchant for tall tales-to which she had fallen easy prey. Rose was naïve. Albus was not. She had spent too much time in potions and books, or otherwise, fixated with her brother's welfare to understand the implications of an adolescent boy's smile, _especially_ one that promised filthy late-night adventures. Curves, hips, breasts; puberty had turned her into an object of male interest; and despite her inclination toward baggy sweaters, dickwads like Goldwin seemed to persist. Spinning outrageous accounts about witnessing a werewolf transformation, he had both enchanted her and taken advantage of her hapless youth. He had used her fascination with him as an incentive to ask her out. She had said _yes._

Another spell threw her against a tree.

She stood up, steadied herself, and in her focused anger lunged at Albus before he could vanish into nothingness. She tackled him to the ground and pinned his arms, using the sheer weight of her to keep him from escaping. He was stronger than her, but not bulky, and she had gravity to her advantage. She pried his wand from his ironclad grip and kicked it aside.

 _"Hey!"_

"You can't use invisibility in a duel, _asshole_." She thumped his forehead. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"You know what!"

"Keep your voice dow—"

"Shut up." She grabbed him by his hair, pinning his head to the ground. "Tell me why we're here."

"Rose Pose." He looked at her with amused suspicion. "You do know what night it is, _don't_ you?"

She was silent for a moment. Albus continued:

"Now, what was the storybook description he gave you? Large arms and yellow eyes?' Are you ready to see for real?"

"Let it go, Al. Goldwin was just—"

"Trying to impress you?"

"And what's wrong with that?" A note of vulnerability entered her voice.

He looked away for a moment. Very much a fourteen-year old boy, he'd wanted to settle matters by dueling, not _conversation_.

"You're an idiot," he said flatly. "Large hands, meaty thighs, loud moans, long nights –what did you think it all meant? Merlin, did you really think he was on about _werewolves_?"

Color bloomed on her cheeks. She didn't need to ask how Albus knew— _of course_ he knew. He read people the way he read books: quickly and objectively. He tore her girlish fancies to shreds with a few simple words.

Abruptly, she stood and began to walk away. He took the opportunity to seize his wand.

"You're an ars— _hey_!"

Her knees skid against the ground, painfully. She leapt to her feet, spinning around in outrage. _"I wasn't looking, you arseho—"_

Another hex and Rose collapsed into a puddle of mud.

"Would you _stop_ —"

And again. Her mouth tasted dirt.

When she finally managed to lift up, he stood towering over her, eyes set in impatience.

"It's almost too easy for me to kick your arse." He tapped the end of his wand at her forehead. "Only shows lazy and stupid you're getting. You'll lose your edge if you keep acting like a girl."

"I _am_ a girl."

"If you intend to act like one, then I'll treat you like one," he snapped and shoved past her, stalking further into the Forest. She strode fast to keep up.

"I refuse for this to end the way it usually does."

He chortled cruelly. "Oh do you? You _refuse_ do you? I wasn't under the impression I had to listen to you."

She grabbed his arm and threw him off pace. "You may be a genius but you do a lousy job at getting your point across."

He rounded onto her, his wand leaping instinctively to her throat. She took a tentative step backwards. They both knew she'd overstepped a boundary: instigating physical contact when he had so clearly dismissed her for her best interest. He trailed the wand across her delicate pale neck, up to her chin. How _easy_ it would be to tear away at her inside the Forest's solitude, with no one to hear her screaming. He could nip her boldness back into place with masterful wand strokes. He would apologize afterwards of course, but _just once_ in the irrationality of the moment if he were allowed to indulge the pangs of violence. He couldn't remember what had triggered his fury this time, only that she had with girlish and insensible actions (or thoughts) betrayed an arrangement that had been implicit between them for quite some time, and betrayal was the _worst_ sort of crime to commit.

But she didn't falter in his threatening disposition, instead reaching and placing careful hands around the one that held the wand. She made him lower it slowly.

"I think if you keep muddling your point like this, you'll only end up confusing yourself."

"You think I'm trying to prove something?" There was a childish twinge in his voice.

"Aren't you always?"

His eyes hardened. "Stop talking."

She ruffled. "You stupid jealous _twat_ —"

"Shut up," he snapped, his neck snapping impulsively to the side. "I heard something just now—"

His usually pale features went shockingly white. She turned and followed his gaze directly into eyes. Distinctly yellow. _Large._

The wolf stood in front of them, snout etched in a murderous snarl. Low growls resonated from the curled snout as its leg territorially scuffed the ground, about to embark on a killing rampage. Her legs nearly gave way under her and an arm grasped at her arm, making her hoist herself up. It pulled her hair to snap her awake.

"When I say run. Run."

She turned her head questioningly at him. He gave her a long, all-pervading stare that told her she wasn't to argue. A furious growl startled her attention back towards the wolf. She could hear his sharp preparatory inhale from behind, blowing against the floating wisps of her hair. She found herself holding her own breath:

"Al, when I said you were trying to prove something—"

"I'm a better shot than you. It only makes sense," he murmured. "On my signal."

Rose dashed as soon as sparks emitted from his wand, hitting the wolf as it lunged forward at him. She didn't look back, running, tears already gathering at the ends of her eyes. _He's dead he's dead he's dead he's de—_

No. Approaching footsteps resonated from behind.

"Move it, Rose!" her cousin growled, taking hold of her again and practically throwing forward. His long strides quickly surpassed hers. She stumbled, grinning, her feet and limbs unsteady as she tried to keep up, her boots kicking up dirt.

They sprinted through the Forest, past Hagrid's hut and the grounds, and didn't stop until they reached the castle.

She took in long draughts of air, struggling to regain breath, "What? It worked?"

"Why wouldn't it?" he gasped, collapsing against the wall.

She turned to him in incredulous amazement, unsure whether to be grateful or angry. It took her a while to swallow the set of nerves that came with this new Albus-behavior. Behaving like a violent angry jerk: normal. Getting them into sticky life-threatening situations: normal. Pitting himself against a werewolf in order to save their lives—this was new.

He had closed his eyes and tilted his head back, breathing thickly. She slid on the ground beside him. For a moment they sat recollecting their breath.

"What you did out there….that was almost _heroic_."

No response.

"I mean, why?"

A scowl crossed his face.

"It's a stupid thing to die. I know how to calculate risks and make rational decisions. Nothing else."

Her mouth twitched. "Definitely not part of your plan to impress me."

He opened an eye and glanced at her.

"Do you think I plan near-death experiences?"

"You know how to calculate the risks."

He closed his eyes again and turned away again as if irritated by her perceptive pandering, but his hand groped the space between them until it found hers. Fingers grazed her wrist for a pulse.

"So how does it feel to see a werewolf, hmm Rosie?"

"Traumatizing." After a moment she added: "But it blows Goldwin's description out of the water."

A chuckle.

"Albus."

"Hmm." His voice was distant, vague.

"What you did was brave." She paused. "I don't mean—I just think…Look," she sighed. "I know you're not James and you're not your dad. You're not some Gryffindor Golden boy. I know that. If I'm completely honest, you're a big time arsehole. But that's not all you are."

He didn't respond, just sat there with eyes closed. Clenching and unclenching his fist around her fingers.

Moments of prolonged silence passed and he could feel her hand squirm inside his: she'd had a thought. Shyly, and with a noted moment of childish hesitance, he felt her draw closer: Soft lips grazed the side of his face. Her voice rang in his ear, both soft and firm. Curiously devoid of her usual anger, it was haunting.

"You're Albus Severus Potter," she whispered. "I just hope you figure out what that means."

* * *

The wandmaker was older than most—he had been around for many turns of the world, both muggle and magical, and drifted through just fine. Now, he was an old and wizened, retired from being a wandmaker, enjoying the last comfort of his days in a sleepy unnamed town by the sea. Hermit, they called him.

One strange afternoon, there was a knock on hermit-wandmaker's door.

It was a boy, bloodied and dirtied and underfed. He was young—not quite yet a man—and even in his tattered demeanor there was a strange regal beauty about him. Refined cheekbones, firm steady gaze, the sort of old-age mannerism to which Mr. Ollivander was unaccustomed from today's youth. And of course, he was familiar looking. A Potter, although Mr. Ollivander couldn't be sure which one.

" _Merlin's beard_ , why…you look just like him…come in. Come in."

He led the boy to a small sitting area. The wandmaker quickly ushered out his elves with tea and biscuits, but the boy did not take any—not immediately anyway. It was only once the wandmaker started eating that he did as well, albeit hesitantly. How odd. While the boy looked as if he was starving, he did not behave so.

"Tell me, are you James or the other?"

"The other."

"Beg pardon." The wandmaker flushed. "My memory is not what it used to be, and I haven't seen Harry for, well _nearly two decades now_."

"It's quite all right."

"What can I do for you?"

"I need a wand, Mr. Ollivander." He put down his teacup, leaning forward. "I was hoping you could help me."

The wandmaker paled. "Oh no, not in that business anymore, dear boy. Terribly, terribly sorry. You best try Diagon alley."

"Diagon Alley isn't what it used to be." The boy had a tone of agitated calmness. "My father saved your life, Mr. Ollivander. You owe me."

"How is Harry?"

"Dead."

"Dear me," the wandmaker said faintly. "My condolences to your family."

The boy did not reply for a moment, instead chose to wipe dirt off his shoulder.

"He came to see me some twenty years ago," the wandmaker continued, "Your father. He wanted to know about wandlore. Pestered me about all sorts of books. I suppose I thought it strange—no one really cares for the sort technical details wandmakers use when constructing, but your father was very zealous."

Dull-green sparked with interest. "What exactly did he want to know?"

 **"The manifest of magic, Mr. Potter."**

The boy was silent for a moment.

"And did you tell him?"

"Who am I to refuse the hero of the Wizarding world?"

Another contemplative pause.

"Thank you for your time, Mr. Ollivander."

The wandmaker stood up as the boy reached the door, perhaps compelled to give one last piece of information, which, really, was all he had. He felt the slightest pity for the boy.

"Magic is not in the wand, Mr. Potter. It is in the wizard. It is a penetration of thought, the essence of an idea…and ideas may manifest themselves in many forms. The greatest wizards can perform magic wandless, wordless. Although such a power may take decades to master."

"I don't have decades," the boy snapped. "I _need_ a wand."

"Bear in mind what I tell you, Mr. Potter. Your father was a man of ideas."

The boy considered this for a moment. "I'm beginning to see that. Good day, Mr. Ollivander."

* * *

Hugo limped after his sister down the street excitedly; it was the first time in two years they would be seeing their home again. Today was Rose's seventeenth birthday, and she finally came to inherit their parents' house.

They stood outside the door, and she turned to him, brow scrunched.

"It hasn't been cleaned in two years."

"It's _fine_ , Rose."

"I don't want you getting sick."

He rolled his eyes and urged her to open it. Dust slammed into their faces as they stepped into familiar air—everything was as they'd left, down to the arrangement of utensils. Mum's books sat proudly in her bookcase in alphabetical order, covered by a hefty layer of dust. Hugo's old wheelchair was in front of the television, a cup of dried milk resting on the tabletop beside. It was like stepping back in time to an ordinary family day.

Cleaning would take many hours even with magic. Because their trip had been physically exhausting, Rose had Hugo nap—he was becoming more able-bodied but walking, even with crutches, fatigued him. When he woke up, he found his sister in the kitchen battling giant rats. Her sleeves were rolled and hair pulled into a disheveled bun.

"Rosie, this is going to take _forever_."

"Stop whining." She huffed, wiping her brow with her sleeve. "It's just the rats. I can't catch them with magic without killing them."

"So?" he snorted, "They're parasites."

She disappeared into the pantry for a moment, reappearing with more mousetraps. "You know how Mum was about hurting animals."

"I guess." Hugo opened the windows. "I just wish you would've gotten help. What was Scorp doing today?"

"You're calling him Scorp now? How often does he come see you?"

"Often… _what_? He said he'd take me to a Cannon's game!"

"Out of the question." Rose threw him a wet rag. "Start polishing silverware."

They spot-shined the kitchen, because Rose thought it was a damn shame to let things go bad just because they were alone now. Mum had always been a neat freak, and Dad would yell he had raised them better. And parents or no parents, it was still their house. One of the few possessions no one could take from them. They moved into the sitting room and Rose enchanted the carpet clean while Hugo dusted tabletops. There were pictures too, but he turned them down as he went. They were distracting.

"Scorp's a nice bloke, Rose. And who cares if he's a Malfoy. It's more important that he's rich."

"What are you on about?"

"My point is that he's way out of your league."

A wet rag was thrown in response and Hugo dodged it. "I'm just taking the piss!" he laughed. "But seriously, why not?"

Rose led the enchanted mops into the other room. Hugo trailed behind her.

"Is it Albus?"

"No."

Hugo didn't look convinced. "Are you sure?

"Yes I'm _sure_ ," Rose said sourly. "It's not _always_ Albus."

"You two have always been—"

"Would you stop? He's my cousin for Merlin's sake!"

"And I'm your brother. But you've been using me as an excuse for years."

"You're a valid excuse."

"What happens when I'm not?"

"You're not better yet," she coughed, fanning the air with a newspaper. "Don't get ahead of yourself."

As Hugo moved to open another window, he felt Rose watching him, her gaze heavy and perplexed. It made him self-conscious; she did this often, as if his mobility was all just part of a dream and she couldn't really believe it, choking up when she found out he could get dressed on his own. She averted her gaze when he turned around.

"Blast it, I should've brought the elves. We'll be at this for _hours_."

"I don't understand why we're cleaning," he said, "Can't really live here can we? You have to stay with the Head and I won't be discharged for months still."

"A shame," Rose yawned loudly, "that this place isn't being used for anything. I'm thinking it needs more cauldrons, don't you?"

His brows raised in startling suspicion.

" _Rose._ "

She gave a coy smile, tapping her wand against her lips.

Hugo regarded his sister warily. Though he'd wanted her to forget it, this no doubt had to do with her recent discovery about their parents. That she wanted to turn their home into a potions lab was no surprise, but Hugo didn't see how anything good could come from it.

"How illegal is this potion?"

"Very."

"Going behind your superior's back—do you know that counts as treason? You could get seven years for that!"

"You've been reading the law," she said fondly. Hugo could be so much like Mum sometimes.

He flushed. "I have a lot of free time. It's either that or healer Augusta's lovey-dove novels."

"Explains the quip about Malfoy," she said. "And the Head _won't_ find out about this. I promise."

"Things are going well. You said so yourself he was starting to despise you less!"

In the recent Ministry escapade, The Head had saved Rose from taking a lethal spell to the face. Rose was mesmerized— it was the closest to amiability they'd ever gotten.

Still—"It doesn't mean I trust him, Hugo."

"Everything's sorting itself out," he said earnestly, "You've made Auror. I'm being discharged in a few months. My point is we've come so _far_. Why was you trying to muck things up?"

Rose didn't answer him. Since finding about her parent's mysterious disappearances, everything seemed to sharp, too bright, as if some covering had been lifted from her eyes. She wasn't sure why her priorities had shifted so suddenly—maybe she was just itching to dabble in magic again. Maybe Hugo was right and they _were_ dead. Maybe she was wanting the wrong things.

But then, Rose had always wanted the wrong things.

* * *

Little Norton—Albus had only heard of it over whispers.

It was godless, without rules. A place for the scum of the Wizarding world, hidden in the ugliest crevice of England. The pavement, damp, was slippery with grime and ash. Filth festered in the gratings between the stone slabs—cracked and jagged. There was no sun, no dawn, just the perpetual gloom of night as he made his way through the crowds.

His senses fell into sharp scrutiny, surveying the surroundings— people walking, talking, whispering, whispers, a faint scream from somewhere, a body being dragged elsewhere, the shifty potions merchant glaring straight at him across the street. He had only one eye. Brown, with specks of green. Without his wand, Albus had only his perceptive powers to rely on.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette.

A wholly _muggle_ contraption, but one the seventeen-year old weaned himself on. During sleepless winter nights with barking dogs and monsters of men that hid in shadows with blades and guns, the taste of fire kept his mind alert.

He promptly finished the cigarette, crushed it under his shoe, and continued moving.

A woman caught his eye. She was beautiful, outrageously, devastatingly so, with hair and hips and legs that went on for miles. But Albus wasn't interested at her legs. It was the wand in her back pocket, hanging in broad sight. Within stealing distance—

"What the 'ell d'you think yer doing?!" A large hand grabbed him by the collar and swung him backwards. Albus steadied himself and scowled at the man.

"L'il thief." The man lunged at him, grabbing him by the collar and lifted him in the air. Drunk, obviously. "Tryin' to steal muh lady's wand? I'll kick yer—"

"Put me down _right now_ ," Albus ordered. "What are you, a muggle? Attack me properly with your wand."

Movement in the square stilled. The drunk man blinked twice. He put the Albus down and procured his wand.

"Good." Albus rolled up his sleeves. He could have run, but after months of muggle confinement, he was also _aching_ to see some proper magic.

"Alo—"

"Too mild. Something more aggressive."

The man stared at him, a bit perplexed. "Per—"

"No, no. That's not good either." Albus shook his head. "Come now! Aren't you capable of thinking up a single decent enchantment?"

The crowd that had formed around them chuckled at this, and even Albus cracked a smirk. This threw the man back into his drunken fit of anger. The girlfriend shrieked as the man lunged at Albus with his bare hands, intent on strangling—

Albus side-stepped, dodging his blow easily enough but was unable to keep himself from feeling a little disappointed. Was this the best the wizard underworld had to offer him? He'd spent weeks dodging more danger from muggle thugs.

The man collapsed after slamming into a wall, allowing Albus to remove his wand and bind him with _incarcerous_.

"It's a bit cruel to take advantage of a drunk man."

Albus didn't turn around immediately. He could hear footsteps approach behind him, several, heavy. He tucked the wand into his jacket and stood up. The crowd had moved over to make room for a group of men dressed in black robes; their leader stood facing Albus. He was a tall spindly wizard with a long, scarred face. He gave the impression of someone who thought himself important.

"Friend of yours?" Albus nodded toward the struggling drunkard.

"Something like that," the man said, "Just got out of an Azkaban sentence for murder. He's also one of my best men."

"If you say so."

"What's your name, boy? And what are you doing in Little Norton?"

"Just passing through."

Albus turned around and started through the crowd. There was danger in a name as notorious as his, and he had no interest in divulging a group of dark-robed idiots.

A spell shot from behind him, hitting a fruits trolley across the street and blowing it into flames. People ran ducking and shrieking. Albus stared at it, annoyed.

"You have something of ours, _boy_."

Albus stood still, listening to the number of footsteps. Fourteen—no – _Fifteen_ large men. They were circling like vultures now, their leader standing directly behind. His front was blocked by fire.

"Hand over the wand."

"No."

" _No_?" the man laughed spitefully, "Trying to pick a fight, are you?"

Albus inhaled sharply at these words. Tried to calm himself. Swallow his excitement. Bite down that erratic grin.

His fingers twitched at his side.

* * *

Sparks shot out the end of his wand shattering street lamps, immersing the field in darkness. Outraged clamor rose.

"I can't see nothing'"

"Wha' the hell?"

"Keep your head!" Their leader growled. "Don't let him get away!"

Thundering footsteps sounded as he turned a corner, readying himself. A man came running out of nowhere and he felt split-second pain as a spell tore past the flesh of his cheek. He responded with _Bombarda_ , splattering said attacker against wall, and narrowly dodged a beam of red sent at from the right. Another man came hurtling out of nowhere, murderous glare on his face, and blasted him across pavement.

Disregarding his injuries, Albus jolted to his feet and dashed after him. He chased him into the narrow opening of an abandoned building, traversing down stairs two at a time.

A trick.

Another attacker lunged at him from overhead, poison on his lips: " _Crucio_."

Albus plummeted down the stairs and fell to the floor, writhing. Cackling men appeared around him— _Look at em twitch_ — but Albus could not make out the rest of their jeers. The searing pain was as unbearable as it had been with his father, stretching his tendons, pulling at his nerves, pulling at his hairs. He felt as if he was suffering from a full-body burn. Still he did not scream. Flashbacks engulfed him—head lolling against grass, fingers clenching into dirt, jaw clenched tongue bloodied from restraint. Sweet agony stretched down the length of his spine to his toes.

 _Now, son, remember that this pain is nothing but a mind trick._

Albus felt something take hold of him. A pressed, squashed feeling letting loose inside his chest.

 _The ultimate manipulation of this curse, you see, rests in the recipient._

He found himself rising effortlessly to his feet, dimly aware that the man was pointing a wand at him but nothing was happening.

 _Rather than deflect, I want you to control your emotions..._

The man tried again but Albus felt only a strange tickling behind his eyes. A low throaty sound escaped him— he started chuckling, _laughing_ hysterically.

 _…_ _make your hardness your strength…_

Had he always enjoyed this, the feeling of knives tearing at his flesh? Had he always fed off his own misery? He couldn't remember anything except pain.

 _…_ _never allow for doubt to invade the security of your mind…_

There a malignant sweetness in that kind of self-suffering, a notion of fulfillment that had gone unexperienced up till now. Who was Albus to refuse his own primal ecstasy, so tightly bound it would take tearing of flesh to set him free? No, he could not refuse himself. He was perfection incarnated. He had finally been _born_.

 _…_ _. You will be stronger, much stronger, than anyone else._

" _AVADA KEDAVRA!_ " he shouted, watching as a body tumbled to the ground.

The rest stared at him in scared silence.

Then fourteen curses shot simultaneously, engulfing the area in colored smoke. Albus felt the searing pain of an enchanted dagger in the flesh of his stomach and ducked behind a barrel as men continued shooting through the haze. Shallow breaths and his vision shook. He dug his nails into his palm and swallowed thickly.

 _Now, remember son this pain is nothing-_

"Avada Kedavra!"

The beam from his wand hit another man straight in the chest, and he fell to the ground, lifeless. The others ran toward their fallen compadre, and Albus stood breathing heavily. His fingers twitched.

 _Now, remember son—_

"Avada Kedavra!"

He bellowed, throwing another man to the floor.

 _This pain is nothing—_

Green eyes shone with a fury no longer repressed. _"Avada Kedavra"_

 _But a mind trick—_

And another. _"Avada Kedavra"_ And another _"Avada Kedavra"_

 _A mind trick._

An erratic grin drew over his face. _"Avada Kedavra."_

 _Had it always been this easy?_

Albus stared at the lifeless bodies decorating the blood stained pavement, as the grin slowly drew itself in. It was as dusk finally met dawn. Thunder snapped inside his head, and green-eyes tore wide, flummoxed, _horrified._ The pain of the dagger bit into his abdomen and he hunched over. He staggered backwards, clutching his side, and then ran.

 _Had it always been this easy?_

Water sloshed under his feet as he ran, blindly, as fast as he could. Away from Little Norton. Away from the bodies. Dead bodies. Fifteen dead bodies. Finally the burning in his abdomen was too much to handle and he collapsed in an alley, gasping for breath. Blood trickled down his nose. Intense pain shot through his head alongside an ugly slew of memories. His hand reached and tenderly gripped the dagger imbedded in his flesh. He bit down on his lip, eyes clenched shut.

 _This pain is nothing—_

"Arghhh!" He pulled the dagger out and dropped to his knees, breathing shallowly. He felt extreme pressure against his skull and retched.

 _And if you find someday that you cannot trust in me, trust in my teachings, and most importantly, trust in what you know…._

He hunched down a spot in the alley and drew out a cigarette, lighting it with shaky, slippery fingers. Breath, he told himself. Just breathe. In. Out. In. Stop and breathe and breathe and don't stop breathing _don't you fucking stop._

 _…_ _you know that I love you more than anything, Albus._

"Bastard." Harsh laughter tore from his throat. "You sick bastard."

The memory shifted from his father's face to a different one. A softer one.

 _Shyly, and with a noted moment of childish hesitance, he felt her draw closer and soft lips grazed the side of his face. Her voice rang in his ear, both soft and firm. Curiously devoid of her usual anger, it was haunting._

 _"You're Albus Severus Potter," she whispered. "I just hope you figure out what that means."_

Why couldn't he hear her words? What was so difficult about her softness, her affection that he hadn't been able to grasp? She had kissed him, in some twinge of sisterly love, and it had lingered, haunted and ate away at him. _I love you Albus_ -had she said that to him or was it meant to be understood? He wasn't sure. Would it remain as unspoken as the rest of their conversations? He wasn't sure what he wanted to believe.

Sweet darling Rose with her fighting words and crumpled expressions and unconditional forgiveness and fragile little wrists that fit into his hands perfectly small enough to snap. He had thought about snapping them often, the sound they would make, her _stupid_ childish cries as she struggled away, or maybe clung closer to him. Instead of fighting back she would simply give up, allowing herself to be held and consoled. It was a sickeningly improbable notion, impossible even—for Rose was not mere sweetness. The difference between Rose in Real Life and Rose in His Quickly Fading Mind was astounding. Rose in Real Life was not a damsel; she was a force.

She'd drive him out of his depth and push him under.

He apparated to several locations not quite sure where he was going, but in case someone was following his apparition stream. Or maybe he did know where was going. He couldn't remember. Hunger burned from somewhere but could not compete with the numerous other pains. He was losing too much blood to think clearly.

There was light in the distance—death?

A door opened and a vague shadow stepped forward.

"Albus? Holy hell… _what happened to you_?"

He must've known where he was going, all along. That was the only explanation. And so, he staggered forward and collapsed into her arms, finally allowing himself to pass out.


	10. Hold

He woke up with a gasp.

Wide green eyes darted around Hugo's old room taking in the bloodied blankets in vicinity, the gauze wrapping his waist, _her face_ , medicinal herbs sitting aside. Just as the knowledge of a familiar reality set in, his breathing slowed.

"Don't try to get up." Her hand pressed at his chest, lolling him back. "Potions won't work unless you lie absolutely still…How are you feeling?"

Lying there, he just stared at her.

"Are you hungry?" It was an unnecessary question. She'd seen how frail he'd gotten when she was cleaning him up. "Hold on, I'll get some—"

His hand caught her sleeve. "Stay, Rose."

She turned, brow etched.

"You're safe here."

"I know."

"I have enchantments around the whol—"

"Sit next to me," he insisted. "For a few minutes. _Please._ "

Fingers traveled up her sleeve, grasping at her hand with force. "It's difficult for me to…" He broke off and his eyes screwed shut. For a split-second Rose thought she had an idea of what he meant.

"Al," she said, her voice quiet. "It's alright."

"Is it?"

She could hear the knot in his words, stretching from his fingertips to hers. He was squeezing the hell out of her hand.

She nodded.

He let out a sharp breath, his grip on her loosening involuntarily, as she stepped closer to him. Her movements were small and careful, made entirely of nerves, and he stared back with a look that was both helpless and impatient. It was a moment of struggle, of uncertainty, of painful anticipation. They had between them years of mutual animosity and now, to break _past_ , would take something more than words.

Rose acted first, wrapping her arms around his neck, pulling his head impulsively to her chest. She could tell she had startled him when his body grew rigid. But then, slowly, cautiously, his hands wrapped around her back as he eased into the embrace. His disheveled head lifted onto her shoulder, allowing her to hold him properly. She cradled the back of his head like a child's, tears gathering in the ends of her eyes. She could feel him exhale into her shirt as she bit back a sob, not wanting to alter the silence for fear that something so delicately established would slip from them. They sat this way for a while, not speaking.

There would be other moments for conversation.

* * *

"There were very few moments that Albus would allow himself to beg for human contact, and even fewer where he would display emotion. It was only in his dying breaths that he—"

"How did he know where to find you?" I interrupted. I wasn't ready to hear about the end. "He can't have known you were at your parent's house."

"He didn't. He could barely walk and had little awareness of his surroundings." Rose gave a vague smile. "But old habits die hard, Mr. Walker."

"I don't understand."

"When Albus and I were young—even younger I mean—there were days his father took him on _special_ trips. On these days, he didn't sleep. He came looking for me at night and lied at the edge of my bed, not talking, turned away, very quiet. Very snippy if I bumped into him, said he didn't want to be touched—I didn't understand it then. But now I see he was trying to hide from something." Her face wrinkled in thought. "Yes— yes I think that Albus was so caught up playing the monster, he forgot that he was also the running little boy… he did a lot of running, Mr. Walker. Up until the end he was running."

"He dies young doesn't he?" I mumbled. There was surprising weight in my voice.

History books marked Albus Potter's death at age twenty-six. Nine years away on Rose's timeline.

And it was nine years until the War officially began.

* * *

"More papers, coming through!"

The office was crowded Friday mornings; field investigations put on halt for filing disgusting amounts of paperwork. Chatter floated across the office, gossip bleeding though mouths—who was seeing who, who was getting canned, who was mauled by a troll last field case, etcetera.

Body hunched over desk, coffee in hand, Rose was hellbent on clocking out early. Weeks had passed since her being assignment to the main task force, and aside from the sheer boredom of filling out forms all day (and still-painful staring by some, though most on the floor had gotten used to her), she was adjusting—or _trying_ to. She knew why the Head had assigned to her a group that was suspiciously mostly similar-aged transfers. He'd judged her weaknesses accordingly. A little too well.

Rose Weasley, proficient dueler, proficient potioneer, desperately lacked _team skills._

"Rosie!"

A stack of papers rained down on her desk, snapping her from her reverie. She fumbled backwards, eyes darting upward.

It was Cynthia.

Strands of brown fell loose out of the Spanish Auror's ponytail as she gave Rose, her newly assigned unit mate, a tired grin.

"Looks like another night in, eh _chica_?"

Rose gave a stiff nod, acknowledgement and nothing more, before resigning to the new stack of paperwork.

Cynthia didn't grasp the hint.

"There goes my hot date for the evening," she vented, plopping down in the chair beside and making herself comfortable. "Did I tell you that pale curse breaker from unit three asked me for drinks? He's so _British._ "

"Vampire. Feeds on the new transfer girls," Rose muttered, flicking through the new stack, a sinking feeling in her stomach— there went all chance of clocking out early.

 _"What?"_

"Fresh blood," snickered Auror Gachevska—Kovy— at the livid Cynthia, passing and handing Rose her usual second cup of coffee, who took it without comment. Their initial acquaintance had been a little cold and hostile—Rose, as a general rule, didn't lend much trust to unnecessarily friendly boys—but he'd warmed up to her via small favors and the occasional compliment. Regular coffee helped too.

"It'll take a couple of weeks before you learn who's who, _printsesa_."

 _"Why are the good guys either taken or dead?"_ Cynthia moaned.

"Undead," Florian Dubois corrected without looking up. The bespectacled French Auror was the fourth member of their unit and also the magical creature expert. Rose knew very little about his transfer except that it wasn't voluntary—he'd let loose a horde of overly inflammatory cornish pixies at his last department.

"Vampires are classified as undead."

"Dead. Undead. Doesn't change that I'm still single," Cynthia fumed. "I made this transfer because I was promised adventure, _romance_ —"

"I'm available, _printsesa_." Kovy wriggled his eyebrows at the Spanish auror, who wrinkled her nose.

" _No gracias._ I think I'll take my chances with the undead—"

"Has anyone seen the Head?" Rose interrupted. "I need to tell him I'm leaving. I'll look at these reports tomorrow."

"I can do them," Florian and Kovy chimed together and turned to stare dubiously at each other.

"What's the rush, _chica_?" Cynthia frowned at her, as the other two dissolved into argument over who was better at paperwork.

"Have _you_ got a hot date?"

Rose shifted in her spot.

"Hugo wasn't feeling well this morning," she lied, though she didn't need to. She wasn't doing anything wrong but the last thing she wanted was _the Head_ somehow finding out she was skimping _work_ to go look after a family member that wasn't Hugo.

Cynthia rolled her eyes. "Fine. Give me the briefs. I can actually handle them, unlike these idiots."

Kovy and Florian were still too busy arguing to hear the jibe.

"I'll come in early tomorrow."

"I said I'll take of it, _chica._ "

It was a gesture of amity, one to which Rose could respond with a feeble _'thanks'_. Back in school she'd never had many friends, and she couldn't muster charisma the way Albus could.

"You owe me drinks later."

"Deal."

Cynthia grinned. "Better not forget, Rosie."

Rose returned the playful smile. It was only when she was out the door did it fade off, returning her face to its original uncaring scowl.

Friendship wasn't in the job description.

* * *

The door creaked open behind and he came out with wet hair, dressed in trousers and a long-sleeve cotton shirt.

"Tea and toast?" She tried to keep her voice casual.

He walked over and pressed a kiss to her temple. "Anything you have. Thanks."

"There's not much your stomach will be able to digest for a while," she informed him. "Earl Grey then?"

"If you have it."

After the previous night, they were on their best manners with each other.

Rose held the thousand questions she had until he'd eaten. She mixed healing potion in with the tea and handed it to him. He took it without a word, too busy observing the jacket hanging off a chair on the other end of the kitchen table. It was the jacket Scorpius left when he came over a week prior; he'd pestered her until she let him check out her old home, having promised to help but instead just lounged around making snide comments and snooping through her old things.

"He comes around, does he?"

A banal comment, but it didn't settle on her nerves quite so easily.

"Not recently. But you know, sometimes." She kept her tone level, "Want some oranges?"

"Are you sleeping with him?"

The knife nearly slipped from her hand, scraping against the flesh of her forefinger.

"I don't sleep here." She fumbled for a bandage through drawers. "I still have to stay with the Head."

"Doesn't answer my question."

"It's a stupid question."

"Then answer it."

A sharp exhale. "No, Albus, I'm _not_ sleeping with your best mate."

"But you want to."

She fought the color rising up her neck. Feeling his sharp gaze on her back, she held her breath. He was checking her nerves. Reading her movements for some sort of confirmation.

A few moments later he turned back to his food and her body eased up. "Because you do know what it means when a bloke leaves his jacket, _don't you_? Means he intends to come over again. Whisk you into the sunset." He sipped his tea. "Or bedroom."

"Malfoy is idiot enough to genuinely forget his jacket."

"Or idiot enough to think he has a shot."

"An idea that _you_ planted," she lashed before she could stop herself.

A scoff. "Give yourself more credit. Not _everything_ is my fault." He leant forward and tilted his head, touching the ends of his fingers together. "Sometimes I just enjoying spectating."

"That's all you'll ever be able to do," she said icily.

"That's because, Rose Pose, I have _bigger_ things on my mind."

"So do I."

His brow quirked at that. The condescending jerk. And immature as ever, attacking her school-aged feelings for Scorpius when he _knew_ , they both did, that chances of anything remotely romantic happening for her had died long ago. Not wanting to give him the opportunity to rub more salt on such tender wounds—wands would be pulled—she changed the topic.

"I visited their graves."

* * *

Only after she finished did he ask, in a quiet voice: "So who else knows?"

"The Malfoys, maybe people in the Ministry." A pause. "I don't really know. I haven't really asked—I'm sorry."

It was the room's dim light that managed to soften his harsh features, and Rose wondered if they had actually been sullen, maybe even pained. The fingers on his right hand flinched.

He jerked them away when she tried reaching for them. "Don't." He wheezed at her. He sounded breathless. "Why should I…" His throat caught and he swallowed, turning away. "Why would I believe you?"

"You think I'd lie about our parents?" She was wounded.

No response.

"Albus. Albus please just look at me."

He didn't.

Just as he stood up she stepped in front of him. "I'm sorry." She followed his movements as he recoiled from her. "I get it… just know you're not the only—" She paused and placed hands on his face. A grimace. A risky move. "Stop. _Stop_." She sighed. "Albus, look. Don't you see I'm trying to—"

"Well I don't want you to," he snapped. Removing her hands, he shoved past her out the door. "I'm not your fucking _Hugo_."

* * *

Albus didn't return for several hours, and it started raining. The gash in his side wouldn't let him apparate or get very far on foot—he had to take his second dose soon—so Rose went after him, albeit begrudgingly. It didn't take her long to find him underneath a giant oak tree, on his what was presumably his fourth cigarette. His expression immediately soured at the sight of her.

She tossed a purple vial, which he caught.

"Twice a day for two weeks. Don't make me pour it down your throat."

There was no reply, only bloodshot eyes and cold silence. As she walked through the haze of smoke towards him, he pulled his wand and cast a barrier.

"I need to organize my thoughts. Leave me be."

Her brow etched. "I can't."

"Yes you can," he said, voice ice-cold. "Turn around and walk back the way you came. You don't find me. I find _you_ …and I'll find you later."

"Do you promise?"

He held an annoyed look. "What are we, twelve?"

"Promise first," she persisted, hair soaked wet. Rain pitter-pattered all around them. "I won't leave until I have your word. That you'll come back to the house. You'll take your potions. And we'll talk without you being a complete arsehole."

He took a long drag, exhaling strands of grey that floated over his head before dissipating. A dragon resting just after it sets a village aflame. Or before.

"You have my word. Just know it means very little."

Her mouth felt as dry as rubble. He was right. But she couldn't let him disappear all over again, to do god-knows-what in some deserted corner of England. He thought his intelligence made him invincible, unmatchable, but he was as human as her—she'd spent hours the previous night cleaning his blood.

He'd catch a cold if he stayed in the rain by himself too long.

Especially now that it was pouring harder.

* * *

He did return, shivering and soaked to-the-bone.

She threw a cloak over his shoulders.

"He kept secrets from me. He kept me in the dark my whole life."

Thunder boomed in the distance.

"They. Us," she corrected him. "Come inside."

She tried to hand him a cup of tea. He waved it away as his drenched figure trudged past her, collapsing on the sofa. Rose sat down on the other end, awkwardly nudging the cup closer to him sidelong the table. And waited. Instead of acknowledging her goodwill gesture, Albus busied himself in kicking off his shoes and stretching out his legs. She watched as he then pulled out a cigarette and lit it.

"What if," she murmured.

He blew a stream of smoke into the room's dimness. "What if?"

"What if they're alive?"

Fire crackled in the silence between them.

"I've considered that."

"Don't you want to see them?" she asked, her voice unexpectedly fragile. "If we found them maybe they could help us."

"With what?"

"You know."

Of course he knew. He'd be a fool not to.

"Isn't that what it's always been about, Al? Getting answers?" she said. "The fight over the resurrection spell?"

He didn't look up but the corner of his mouth lifted. It was terrifying. "Is that what you think?"

"If your father's alive then you won't need to resurrect him," she tried. "We'll all get what we want."

"You're so simple," he said hoarsely. "C'mhere." With one finger, he gestured her over as one would a small child. A stupid younger sister. Never mind that she was four months older and had been taking care of him for the past couple of days. _That_ didn't matter at all. In the back of her mind, she knew it was part of some eternal game with him— both friend and enemy, her brother—he played his parts well when he had to but _always_ made sure to keep the upper hand.

He sat up as she scooted closer, his hand reaching over to tuck a tendril behind her ear. His fingertips remained at her temple, and Rose felt torn between capturing him in a hug or fleeing the premises. She wasn't repulsed. He was family, but somehow, his tenderness was more frightening than his stone-cold anger. He was too close for comfort, always had been, and despite all their shared years she still had no clue how to handle him.

"Rose Pose." Her eyes fluttered close as he tilted forward, pressing their foreheads together. "There's only reason I would want my father back from the dead," came the hiss, words blowing smoke. "And it's so I can send him back myself."

* * *

There was a man in the world who was not a man. He was without name, without family, without identity. He had neither beginning nor end to be remembered— he simply _was._

He was a man that watched centuries turn amidst the shadows, not really caring. A war or two might make him blink an eye, but in the end he had no business with them. Dark Lords came and went, but the world continued turning without a care. History was on a cyclic repeat and it was all _dreadfully_ boring.

The man lived in a boarded-up, dilapidated shack miles under the ground, a shack that could only be summoned by a secret enchantment. But secrets were only as good as the people who kept them, and with all the people he knew to be dead, it grew harder still for anyone to come looking for him. When no one knows you exist, do you stop existing altogether?

The man _wanted_ to be found.

The previous several years had proved to be fascinating. The invention of a spell that brought the dead back to life-by a _child_ no less. Wait. Daughter of famed heroes.

But the boy was more delicious, more fresh. Word traveled about the massacre in Little Norton—how _he_ proved himself immune to the _Cruciatus_ curse, second deadliest of all. Then sent _Avada Kedavra_ to everyone in the room.

And that wasn't all. He was behind _Hogwarts_ as well.

Yum.

Counterparts. He and her. She and him. For selfish reasons, both had tainted magic and altered the course of history irrevocably. They had created unnatural uses for magic. They were unnatural in and of themselves, diseased. Freaks. Or special?

One held the secret to Life while the other brought Death wherever he went. They were worth watching.

 _This_ decade would prove interesting.

* * *

He trailed his fingers over all the creases and dents in the holly wood—admiring the texture, the tangibility of his father's wand. In the periphery of his thoughts Rose's voice echoed, explaining some sort of plan she had, through Albus wasn't really listening to details. A potion that involved traveling to past locations. Juvenile idea. She had no doubt stolen it _from him_.

Still, he had to admit she had nerve, digging up their parents' graves. But he wasn't sure what to make of it all —he had always seen his father's wand as an extension of his father. Detachment of wand from wizard felt unnatural and painful and he couldn't really fathom the man's chances without it.

If he was alive, he wouldn't be for long.

 _Magic isn't in the wand, Mr. Potter. It is in the wizard. It is a penetration of thought, the essence of an idea…and ideas may manifest themselves in many forms._

Your father was a man of ideas.

At any rate, Ollivander was onto something.

* * *

Rose left the potion designs in the refrigerator. Behind the milk carton.

The next day, when scouring for food, Albus found them. He read them over lunch. He spent all over afternoon thinking about them. By dinner he had finished making the appropriate edits to them and was setting up cauldrons.

Well played, Rose Pose.

* * *

The next day Rose rushed through paperwork and clocked off early, accidentally-but-also-intentionally blowing off those promised drinks with Cynthia. She hoped the Head would be too occupied with pressing new cases to notice or care for her apparating so often to her house- which _was_ technically her property.

Upon entering, thick greenish fumes bombarded her face. She coughed. Vision watery, she tiptoed over piles of books, papers, cigarette butts, and various small and unidentifiable things. A difficult feat, and no doubt infuriating since she'd spent the last week scrubbing every inch of the place.

Finally making it to the kitchen—source of the ghastly fumes—Rose found her cousin surrounded by at least thirty beakers of different colored liquids. He was inspecting a fuming dark-colored vial with magnifying spectacles, not seeming to notice her come in.

"So," she began, embarrassed she had no idea what he was doing.

"We're still missing quite a few ingredients but I'm working on the first layer."

"I'm sorry, _what_?"

He looked up at her. "I decided I liked your idea. Using my potion. With his wand."

Rose stared, flabbergasted. Three days ago he'd been _bedridden_.

Albus quickly wiped sweat from his brow with his apron and stepped to the right side of kitchen—a space he'd apparently designated as his personal library. Spellbooks stacked high along the wall. A row of a dozen of them lay open on the countertop. He paced by, pace impatient and erratic, flipping pages as he read them all simultaneously in search for something for something, when she asked, "Erm, how long have you been working?"

"Last night," he replied, without looking up. "So about fi-fifteen hours?"

 _"Albus."_

He ignored the warning in her tone. With an aggrieved sigh, Rose trudged over to the stove, setting a kettle for herself. It had been too damn long a day for this. Albus could screw around with his potion if he liked as long as he cleaned up _afterwards_. Out of the corner of her eye, she made sure to watch him though.

She heard a whispered _damn it_ after the accidental addition of some powder. The brew was ruined—you could see it on his face: the bags under his eyes darkened in sheer disappointment, and he ran fingers though his already messy hair. He noticed her stare.

"I miscalculated the moondew dosage," he explained wearily.

"It's a difficult potion A—"

"Fuck, I _know_ that." Eyes squeezed tight, he rubbed at his temples. "Don't tell me what I already know. I wrote the fucking design, remember?"

"Theory's always different than the real thing," she tried, watching as he furiously kicked over a stack of papers. "Progress doesn't happen in a day."

"It does for _me._ "

In his rage, he toppled over a table. She flinched but said nothing. The problem wasn't the potion and they both knew it—it was _him_. He was malfunctioning, making the sort of mistakes he rarely did. Rose felt personally accountable for his failure. Here he was, barely well, and she'd pushed him into work.

"Al—"

Not hearing her, he leant against the back of a chair, his breathing irregular and heavy. He removed a cigarette from his pocket and lit it, breathing in deeply. He ran another hand through his hair and took a deep breath which he released slowly, and for a moment Rose thought he'd have another fit of anger.

But he didn't. His neck snapped up, blood-shot eyes devoid of their earlier rage or anything else. "You said something?"

"I was going to ask if you're hungry." A lame finish. He looked thrown for an entire minute.

"Yes," he said at last.

"Yes?"

"Yes."

"So," she said awkwardly. "Order in? Or we could go out—"

"Let's go out," he decided.

He strode over, throwing on his coat, and ran three fingers to fix his hair. He stood in front of the mirror and pulled at the edges of his mouth, trying to stretch them out of their rigid bounds. Then, once convinced he (still) looked unreservedly handsome, he grabbed her hand and led her out the door.

They went to a place that smelled of stale grease and sat outside so that Albus could smoke. Not as hungry herself, she watched him eat in a half-starved sort of way, wondering exactly what sort of hell he'd been through the past several weeks.

He had really changed since she'd last seen him. His eyes were the same pale green but in the corners were faint hints of crows feet. His forehead had a crinkle or two from strain. His face was thinner than she remembered and the cheeks had sunk in. He was still good-looking but gone was the unblemished picture-perfectionism. It had been replaced with a hard-lived fatigue.

"You're staring again."

She blinked twice. "Am I?"

"You do it a lot," he muttered. "You're not as subtle as you like to think."

"Hmm…must be those famed looks then."

A humorless laugh. "Flattery doesn't suit you Rose Pose. Sing a different tune."

"You still haven't told me what you've been up to all this time."

"Shouldn't have to," he said dryly. "You've been observing me for three days now. More than enough time to gather the anomalies. _So_ … put them together."

She considered this.

"You've got a nasty smoking habit. Wizards don't smoke cigarettes. Muggle world? "

"Easy," he dismissed. "Tell me something less obvious."

"You've been in a couple of fights—" He cleared his throat. "—sorry. More than a couple probably, given your temperament. And the creative number of bruises you've managed in such a short time."

"Keep going."

"Let's see…what else, what else, oh." She turned to him, slyly. "No longer a virgin."

He blinked.

"In the muggle world without a wand or money, you'd fall back on your looks and elicit favors. And you're, well _you_. It's not as if you'd have trouble finding willing participants. Plus when I was changing you, there were some very telling marks on your— _what_? It totally counts!"

" _No, it doesn't._ "

"It counts," she muttered under her breath.

He ignored her. "You mentioned my wand. Tell me about that."

"The wand you're carrying is some clumsy oakwood model. Not yours. Since wands aren't easy to come by present time and day, at some point you had to steal it." She paused. "So what happened to yours?"

He lit a cigarette and looked away for a moment.

" _She_ happened," he said coldly. "Bitch snapped it in half when she kicked me out."

Hearing him call his mother that made Rose flinch. It was like beating a dead horse down, for she no longer saw Ginny as someone living, _simply breathing_.

Rose knew the stories like everyone knew the stories: of crumbling castles and fire-lit skies and silent heroes who became martyrs in a fight beyond their means. Lover, brother, best friend—losing each, _and together_ , was not the beginning for Ginny. No, the woman had been slipping for many years; war is brutal on the psyche, a shadow that looms and tears into the conscious and _never leaves_. There were faces she could no longer see, Fred, there was a childhood lain to waste by fear, there was a happiness long-sought-after and, now, lost to fire. Time forgets to heal. Grief lends itself to survivor's guilt. The intangible becomes scarier than the tangible. And after it's all said and done, what doesn't kill you ends up breaking you.

Rose knew what it was like to be so severely beaten down you lost the will to go on. She had lost more than she could ever really fathom. It was more than her past; she had lost her _future_ when she tampered with the bounds of death. She had set herself for a difficult life. She knew this but had somehow buried the fact deep inside her.

And that was the difference, wasn't it—between her and Ginny?

In spite of all the gloomy uncertainties, Rose knew the certainty of one thing: the simple decision to wallow in regret would be the end of her and her brother. The Head had forced her to stretch beyond her capabilities—to push through. In the end she could only go on.

Albus looked so tired to her now, leaning against the table with his arms. It was strange to see him so unkempt, hair tangled and messy and overgrown, falling over his forehead. It was almost humorous. She stroked his hair back, deciding to give him a haircut later whether or not he allowed her. His eyes closed at his touch and Rose wondered for a moment if he'd fallen asleep.

"I'll need a few days." His voice was vague, floating. "Just a few days to adjust. The potion, I mean."

She quickly paid the check and lifted his arm to pull him up. He put it over her shoulder as they headed out the door. He stumbled a little as they stepped outside and she wrapped an arm around his waist for support. He was drowsy enough to keel over, so instead of apparating they rode an empty tram back to the house. Sitting beside, he could barely keep his eyes open. Within minutes his head was flopped on her shoulder.

"I suppose I should thank you," came a faint voice. "That's what people do, don't they? In these situations."

"You don't have to." Then, she added. "You'd do the same for me."

"You don't really believe that."

"I like to pretend."

A dry chuckle followed by an abrupt pause.

"Rose."

"Hmm?"

"I think…" He spoke uncertainly at first and stopped. Then she heard a soft sound, the kind made when the tongue unglues from the roof of one's mouth after a long time.

"I think I'd like to pretend that too."

* * *

 **Translations:**

 **Chica—Spanish for girl.  
Gracias—Spanish for thank you.  
Printsesa—Bulgarian for Princess.**


	11. Plan

There was a man in this world who was not a man. He was lean cut and of ivory skin; one would describe him as beautiful if there wasn't something thoroughly discomforting about his appearance. His face held a waif smile disaffected by time, serene, a child's smile. He had no distinct features. His eyes were unreachable. And yet, something of him screamed of deformity though one could not specify the point.

Now look closer.

There was something in that stare that must have been calculated, practiced, perfected over near a millennia. It was glassy like a doll's. Practically dead. It had been sculpted by _generations_ of war, for war was one absolute bound to time which circled interminably callous in regard to fates of men.

A man that has seen so much death can know nothing else.

He _did_ have a name, but it would matter little even were he able to recall it. Names are superficial, given solely to those who will be remembered, and this man had been forgotten by all Including Time Itself. Still, he never forgot any of his own encounters: those precocious Caricatures Four as children, the Hallowed Brothers Three who met Death on a lonely road, that charming Hungarian fellow after the Greater Good, and, yes, even the Cheshire-smile boy whose name spelled Riddle.

All darling, all dead.

There was a new one now, who came from the same mold. He was beautiful, though there was nothing organic about his beauty. He was a byproduct of the crudest teachings of magic; a malformation. He had turned the Cruciatis Curse on its head. He was on everyone's lips. He had terror and crime cells on his scent (low-life scum intent on learning his power for their own agendas). He had reached a high enough level of infamy to warrant a look from authorities. He was the hottest commodity on the magical market and he did not yet know it.

The bidding had begun.

And somehow, he was the same cautionary tale told yet again.

Would there be something that marked him different from his predecessors?

Time would tell.

* * *

I'd missed something.

"Forgive me, Rose," I spoke out of turn, "but I don't see what this has to do with the war. In our three days together, you've said very little about it."

"In due time, Mr. Walker."

"No. You're derailing me. I'd like to know why."

Her courteous smile slipped.

"This is the problem with historians," she muttered. "You are taught to study battles and names and facts and _deaths_ —but you cannot understand lives as they stand, untouched, independent from the chaos that surrounds them. You have eyes but you do not see. You are blinded by your profession."

I protested but she held up her hand.

"Until you lift the curtain of your ancestors, until you learn to see past the fundamental laws that sever you and I, you will not understand what truly happened. And what happened was never really _about_ the war."

I was silent for a moment. We had come at crossways.

"Everything was the war."

"If that is what you think then I've failed," she said sharply. "I have failed to make you understand the threat we faced. Everything that I have said. Every finer detail I have given you adds up to something larger than you have imagined. You know this. You can sense it, but much like your ancestors, you choose ignorance. You, the historian, have been taught to study war, but you will never learn the truth if that is all you wish to see." Her voice dropped to a grave whisper, "The true battle, Mr. Walker, was never visible in the public. It happened in the privacy of shadows; silent chess, a game of kings where the pawns moved on their own accord."

That was when I knew I had missed something _very_ important.

* * *

From the top of somewhere nearby, yellow eyes followed _him_.

Today, he dressed muggle-casual; old khakis, crumpled button-down shirt under long dark coat, hair ruffled like a million hands had been running through them. It was not accidental. Even this scruffiness was somehow deliberate. The work he put into making himself unapparent was _very apparent_ , and somehow this fact was also apparent, for Albus Potter was many things but _oblivious_ was not one of them. Circumstantially, neither was _prey_.

1\. He knew he was being watched.  
2\. Now his watcher did too.  
3\. Which was what he wanted.

He had had his suspicions for quite some time now, but it had only set in after his reunion with his cousin. From his lapse in Little Norton to Rosie's little revelation about their parents to now— _especially now._ The shadows he kept confined in his head had leaked into reality and now sat perched on branches, stalking him. Whispers mingled with the wind, overlapping, but he could make out one:

 _Ordine Corvis_

Flapping turned to footsteps very quickly, drawing swiftly nearer. They swelled out, suddenly, louder, as he turned the end of the street. Street after street—and there were no people—he passed street after street of dusky lamp light till at long last he stopped outside a narrow passageway no wizard save him could find; what had once been a WW2 bomb shelter was now his private smoking chamber. Albus slipped through and, irritably fishing though pants pockets for a carton of cigarettes, angled himself against the wall. He kicked the door shut. He lit the end of the Lucky Strike with his wand and inhaled, green-eyes-pinched-red fluttering. Smoke spilled into the small compartment, rolling over him like salty-sea waves drowning out all footsteps, flapping, whispers.

He was safe only for a moment.

* * *

"Rose _help_ ," Kovy moaned, peeking into the cubicle next to his. "I'm drowning. You can bring the dead back to life— invent a spell that does paperwork for me _pleeeease-_ "

"No thanks," came a dry reply. "I don't need them to revoke my sentence."

"For a spell that completes paperwork? Is the British government that arseholer-ish?"

"It's not Bulgaria, Yaakav," came a voice from the cubicle on his left. Florian poked his head over the top, veela-silver strands falling over his dark-rimmed glasses. "People take the law seriously here."

"Shut up, French."

"It's true. Kingsley is not a lenient man when it comes to the unlawful practice of magic, and given the state of things he's right not to be. Fifteen more people were found dead in Little Norton this morning. The Killing Curse. I overhead the _Monsieur_ speaking with his colleagues. It's the headline for tomorrow's _Prophet_. "

Kovy was confused. "Sorry, who?"

"He means the Head," Rose explained.

"What? Why not just use his name?"

"Because no one uses the Head's name."

"Does anyone even _know_ his full name?"

There was a pause.

"It's probably something embarrassing," Florian snorted.

"Though you have to admit it's scarier not knowing," Kovy muttered.

Another pause.

"So the murders," Rose attempted. "Do they have any leads yet?"

"Investigation hasn't started. _Monsieur's_ assigning people today."

"I hope to Merlin he doesn't pick me," Kovy said miserably, head on desk. "I'm already behind."

"It's because you never do anything." Florian rolled his eyes at him, before walking over to Rose's cubicle, "So do you want in? I could talk to _Monsieur_ about putting you on the case. Might be a nice break from the office." He grinned. "I've requested it myself."

"He won't put me on it."

"Eh, why not?"

"We have a weird history."

"He hates you?"

Rose frowned, wishing it was that simple.

"I don't really want a homicide case," she said, as if embarrassed of the fact. Aurors lived for these sort of cases, whereas she was fine with safe boring days at the office, doing paperwork, drinking coffee, and listening to the complaints of her charming if annoying Bulgarian colleague.

But Florian was insistent anyway. He passed her his copy of the case files. "Look through them. In case you change your mind."

* * *

 _Wizard. Between the ages of 16 and 20. Spotted leaving the area. Medium build. Dark hair. Witnesses claim he was injured. He was also seen earlier stealing a wand_ — Rose stopped reading. A painful knot had formed in her stomach.

Next were autopsy reports of each victim in excruciating medical detail. There were fifteen. She flipped through them fast, hands shaking, eyes wishing for the damned words to disappear off the page.

The pictures were worse.

Next, she was in the bathrooms, blasting water out of the faucet. She gasped—it was freezing and every muscle in her body clenched when it made contact with her skin. For one single shocking moment she was one of the corpses and this was rain and she could see his face, emotionless green eyes looking back at him. Then she blinked and watched the puddle in the basin turn pink. Her lip, red from gnawing, had bled. Her head felt light, like bone had been carved out of it. She left work early and took direct floo transport to St. Mungo's.

"Rose, what are you doing here?" Hugo was sitting in his bed in pajamas watching quidditch. "You're never off this early."

"Mhhmm."

"What is it? What's the matter?"

She shook her head and crawled into the bed with him, burying her face into his bony shoulder. His arms came around her body, holding her while she held him. Finally, the burning behind her eyes found relief. Her whole body shook as she drenched his shoulder, and Hugo, being Hugo and knowing nothing more than his sister was upset, held her and let her. He asked her a million questions, but the great thing about Hugo was that he didn't require an answer. Finally Rose was able to choke out a certain half-truth which became a whole-truth when she felt truly small.

"I miss Mum and Dad."

* * *

There had been dull nights, back in Third Year for Scorpius and Albus, in that lulling time after Christmas and before exam cramming. With the help of a certain Marauder's Map, the highly precocious Slytherins had thoroughly spanned every hall and corridor in Hogswarts, at which point it was necessary to branch out of their…academic confines. It was Potter's idea, originally, but Scorpius was the one who found a way to hide the portkey in the dungeons, serving as a direct route to the heart of London. This was big, for there was no way to apparate in and out of Hogwarts and students leaving premises by any other means was strictly forbidden. But then, the two boys had such a long record of illegal or otherwise disruptive activities that _this_ paled in comparison.

There was something pleasing about having access to the rest of England on a whim, particularly for blue-blooded Scorpius who had never before stepped outside magical realms without doting parents or servants, who had never even seen the _Tower of London_. Pureblood children were generally very sheltered. Albus took care of this—a few months in, they were flying high across the Thames.

In their adventures, there was a spot they always stopped for sandwiches. Down the alley from a rundown pub, two streets over from a curry shop, across from a fishery—the smell of dead fish lingered in the whole street.

 _Malfoy,_

 _Tea. Our usual spot. Seven?_

-Potter

Seven words, Scorpius realized. All it took Potter was seven words to reset their fight, reset all of what had happened at Hogwarts. He had ordered for Scorpius, the usual assorted sandwiches and a cuppa. Two sugars. Two creams. He might've been apologizing, but he'd never admit it, and even as they sat across from each other the rift so prominent between them was overshadowed, for a moment, by the sheer relief Scorpius felt because the cocky son-of-a-bitch was _alive_.

They conversed between bites.

"You didn't write."

"I didn't think you wanted to hear from me."

"That's beside the point. If anything you should've written to piss me off."

Potter didn't make eye-contact, never did when he was cornered. Scorpius took a bracing gulp of his tea. It was cold and bitter.

"I guess I have to ask how you've been, eh _Potter_?"

He gave a bored shrug. "A pointless social convention if you ask me. But if you want to waste time—"

" _Shut up."_

Scorpius would've said more if his throat hadn't closed right then. He was shaking. The idiot's mum kicks him out and he doesn't have the sense to tell Scorpius? In their time at Hogwarts together the blond might have guessed things were shaky in the Potter household—Scorpius was no stranger to family strife—and that the boy was uncomfortable speaking of it. But Scorpius told him _everything_. He'd always been there for him, hadn't he? Surely Potter knew this.

"You could've come stay with me," he said—admitted, more like. "All you had to do was write. Words. On. Paper. All you had to do was _tell_ me."

Potter looked mildly amused. "Sure your parents would want you sleeping with the enemy?"

"Oi, _fuck off._ We've shared a dormitory for six years. And anyway, my parents already know we're-" He almost said the word 'friends'. "—acquainted. They've always been fine with it."

"It's because you've never told them about the fun things."

Scorpius shifted in his seat.

"Speaking of doing fun things," Potter continued, a bit more coldly, "I see you've been making very regular visits to Rose in my absence."

"Maybe. Why, are you jealous?"

"No," he said, eyes hard. "Have you told her about Hogwarts?"

"I haven't told anyone."

"Good."

Silence. After a moment Potter spoke:

"I recall you wanting to turn us in."

"I changed my mind."

A sneer crossed over his face. "Knew you'd come around."

Truth be told Scorpius hadn't come around to _anything_ , but looking back, now that he was less emotional, he saw that his decision may not exactly have been in their best interest. And that Potter, despite having injured him, may have ultimately saved them both. Scorpius disliked it but he wouldn't deny he hated the idea of wasting away behind bars even more. He was the only son of the most famous pureblood family in all of England; more importantly, though, his dad would kill him. And his mum was scarier than any dementor.

It also didn't help that both parents loved him immensely.

Scorpius felt wretched. He really did. The distinction between right and wrong had been so simple in the past, and now he couldn't tell what direction his life was headed. Or maybe, Scorpius decided, the stakes had just always been lower. And maybe he'd been directionless his whole life.

Scorpius looked over that boy who was staring back, emotionless eyes scanning his face.

"The past can't be altered, Malfoy," he spoke a bit more quietly. "Memories can. And if it's too much, I can erase—"

"Don't do that," Scorpius said quickly. He had kept it inside him for so long that to talk about it now make him dizzy. "I mean…it was an accident, wasn't it?"

"It's what you choose to believe it is."

He gave a bitter laugh. "Is that how you deal with things, Potter? Choose what matters and what doesn't, what's real and what's not? Do you choose what gets to haunt you?"

Potter didn't blink. "It's only a school. Ties with the centaurs were already strained; they would have attacked anyway. In the end we only sped up the inevitable."

"You're unbelievable."

Potter gave a cold look. "You're right. Maybe I do choose what gets to haunt me."

There was a key moment here, where Scorpius sensed there was more to their out-of-the-blue reunion than Potter was telling him.

"So what's this really about, Potter? Just wanted to have tea and chat?"

Silence.

"Have you ever heard of the _Ordine Corvis_?"

"As much as anyone else who reads the papers. They're a crime cell. Animagi. Disguise themselves as crows. Why?"

"They normally recruit from the upper crust," Potter said, unfolding and passing over a piece of parchment. "They spin themselves as revolutionaries. You'll find their laggies at any one of Mummy and Daddy's parties. It should be really easy."

Scorpius knew what he was asking, and also that it held a danger level far beyond any other task Albus had asked him to complete. But then if Scorpius was to be risking his neck, he wanted to know it was for a legitimate reason.

"You're looking for a name," Potter continued. "I don't need to know what they want, what they do, what they're after. I don't care. I just want the name of whoever sent them after me. Then I'll handle it."

Scorpius paled. "Bleeding hell Potter. Just how much trouble have you gotten yourself in?"

Potter didn't answer him. The corners of his mouth were terse.

* * *

One vital ingredient was still missing from the successful completion of Al's potion.

Time turner dust.

While all the time turners had at one point been destroyed, it was well-known that the Department of Mysteries had saved and now held several hundred kilograms of dust.

A missing cupful wouldn't be noticed unless given reason.

People passed through the large atrium, wave after wave, no one paying special attention to them. "Walk at a distance," she warned. "No one should think we're related."

"Tell them I'm your boyfriend. No one will make that mistake."

"Behave," she hissed, as he threw an overly suggestive arm around her. The problem wasn't their resemblance; they didn't even look alike. The bigger problem was that he looked _exactly_ like his father, her uncle, the previous Head Auror, something that would not go unnoticed. And given what Rose knew now, it was necessary for Albus to avoid attention at all costs.

"Big place," he whispered, eyes traveling across the span of the building. "I think I could get wonderfully lost here."

"I should hope not, since I've already given you the building schematics."

"I wasn't being literal, Rose…you don't have to be such a joykill."

She ruffled. "And anyway, haven't you been here before? I know Uncle Harry used to bring you and James on the slow days." She paused, contemplating something. "Or maybe it was just James."

"I don't remember."

"You have a photographic memory."

"I don't remember," he repeated, with a slight edge. "There are things I don't remember."

"Fine."

She dropped the matter. They passed through strings of crate carrying goblins, elves, Unspeakables, powerful looking ministry officials, and other assorted creatures. Despite the Ministry's emphasis on unity, congregations were organized by race. Humans stood conversing in a corner entirely secluded from the others.

"So that's my father's successor," Albus mused, his gaze on a tall scarred-face man, the Head, as he yelled at one of the young, apparently very clumsy intern. There was a large coffee stain on the front of his robes. "Is he competent?"

"He's malevolent."

"Introduce me?"

Rose couldn't imagine a match worse than her amoral egotistical cousin and her amoral egotistical boss.

"When I want the world to end, sure."

Al's eyes flit away from the Head, narrowing on her instead. "You live with him, don't you?"

"The bylaws of our agreement say … _what?_ "

The corners of his mouth twitched.

"You're disgusting," she accused. "Stop."

"Stop what?"

" _Thinking_ it."

"An accomplished Legilimens, are you?"

"One, he's my boss. Two, he's my legal guardian—"

"But not biologically related."

Her eyes widened at him. "Shit, Albus-"

"You've always gone for the unattainable sort anyway. Remember Teddy? And Teddy was practically family too. Naughty, naughty," he chuckled, pressing a feather-kiss at her temple. "Maybe it's your type."

She gave him a scathing look. "That's a disturbing presumption even for you."

"But not wholly untrue." His draped arm tightened, fingers curling at her shoulder. "So tell me. Your legal guardian ever ask to you to do something…not entirely legal?"

That implication: he was teasing but her ears reddened anyway.

"Focus," she spoke tersely. "Do you know where you're going?"

"I always do my homework Rose Pose."

"You have one hour."

He turned to walk away, but not before she grabbed his arm. "You take longer than an hour, alarms go off and they catch you," she hissed at him. "And we both know if you ever get caught, theft is at the bottom of your long list of fuck-ups. They'll find everything on you. _Everything._ "

He was silent.

"They have enough to convict you for life, with or without whatever happened at Hogwarts. And I don't want to know, all right? I just… don't." She gave him a fierce look. "All I'm asking is for you to not screw this up. Can you manage that?"

She knew. She knew about Little Norton, and while she was pissed at him, she was also protecting him. He wanted to say something, a lie, the truth, _something_ , but somehow found himself incapable of mustering conviction for anything. For the first time, despite his intellect, Albus felt strangely inadequate.

He pushed the unnecessary notion away.

Rose had to attend a meeting that particular afternoon, but she'd given him all the passcodes she'd thought he'd need, which he didn't really need—he'd spent the majority of his youth with Scorpius Malfoy fine-tuning such essential skills and, compared to the locked passages at Hogwarts, a few ministry doors were child's play.

No one noticed the young man hidden in plain sight, too charming to be anything but earnest. He was the intern. He was the rising ministry star. He was the handsome Cursebreaker all the receptionists wanted to get off with. He could impress anyone and everyone with a few carefully chosen words. He was able to make elevator small–talk about matters of which he knew next to nothing. Who the hell really cared what Gifford Tugwood intended to about the struggling economy but Albus certainly had an opinion about it. And the situation at Gringotts? Hopefully goblins and humans could put aside their differences and sort it out.

Passing past the Minister's office, Albus did stop for a few moments. There was something fascinating about being less ten feet away from the most powerful man in the country; If Albus had the slightest interest in politics, he might've gone a few more feet.

He moved on.

Here's something you didn't learn at Hogwarts-the magic of costumes. You could learn everything about a certain trade and never get past the front door. Rose Pose was testament of this, unable to integrate despite having equal skill and training as her comrades. And while Unspeakables were an even more tight-knit group, no one would doubt a young man claiming to the ill-mannered recently appointed trainee if _he was wearing the right robes_. Bradley Shahavasar. It didn't take more than a few minutes to find (on his lunch break), hex (lure him to the bathrooms first), and Obliviate his short-term memory so that he would wake up thinking he'd fallen asleep avoiding the second part of his shift. Admittedly Albus did take a few extra seconds to adjust the long-hooded dark robes. Unspeakables covered their faces at all times.

Then—"Who goes?"

"It's Brad, you dolt."

"Identification?"

He cursed under his hood. "Merlin, I stepped out _for a few seconds_. Is this necessary every fucking time?"

"In a rush Brad?"

"I have a shitload of work to do, Jimmy."

"Maybe if you didn't take so many breaks you'd finish," the larger-robed man snorted, opening the entrance to the Department of Mysteries for Albus Potter.

* * *

Meanwhile, Rose was stuck in a meeting about recent werewolf riot formally led by her guardian, her boss, the Head. The oval room seemed duller and warmer today, and while aurors clamored about, there was a noticeable lull in noise. Every second loudly ticking by made her chest feel tighter.

Any moment now he'd get caught.

"Rose?" It was Cynthia. "You feeling ok?"

"Fine."

 _She'd_ rigged the alarms, _she'd_ stolen the passcodes, hell, _she'd_ be going to prison alongside him. With her luck they'd end up sharing a cell.

What had she been thinking?

"You don't look well-"

"I said I'm fine," she snapped. "Look, can you leave me alone?"

Cynthia looked hurt but Rose wasn't in the mood to apologize. She rolled up her sleeves to keep herself from sweating profusely. The potion had to be finished at all costs. She was committing treason, but there was no going back now. Her parents. Her _life_. Her whole life hung on Albus right now.

It'd be the longest hour of her life.

At that moment Albus had wafted past the Hall of Prophecies and was halfway to the Room of Time. He had memorized the floor's schematics prior in order to save time.

And yet.

And yet there was a stop he really had to make.

In the large echoing Death Chamber, dimly lit and rectangular, it stood: the Veil, atop a stone dais raised from a twenty-feet sunken stone pit. He'd heard enough about it to know it was the most fascinating thing in the entire building; an actual physical manifestation of the barrier between the living and dead. Like Rose, it served as a bridge between the two worlds.

His father's godfather had fallen through it.

Curiosity compelled Albus down the steep steps, close enough to see the curtain gently rippling, make out all the ancient archway's cracks. It was amazing that it stood as it did. The tattered black curtain rippled back and forth as though it had just been touched, and as Albus drew closer still, he felt a rush of cold air and then complete stillness.

He shivered.

It was a wholly ethereal feeling, pungent and dark and _inviting_. Preventing clarity of purpose, it took Albus completely and like lovelorn lover he scrambled up the dais to be even _closer_. It was longing, lust, a feeling he had never duly explored. A craving that had too long not been satisfied. It was already in his head; the whispers called out for him oh so sweetly. The pull was especially strong on him, for Albus was one wizard already too-infatuated with magic.

Dying was a tragedy. Death, however, was a science.

Then, there passed a moment where his consciousness slipped. He couldn't remember what he was doing there, who he was, only that he wanted nothing more at the moment than to walk through—

The alarm blared against his eardrums.

* * *

Back on the Second Floor, aurors scrambled to their feet at the sudden bell, Rose included. The Head bellowed out orders: _What do you mean someone got past security? Let's go, let's go!_ Aurors headed for the Department of Mysteries. _I turn my back for a second and the place goes to hell. Get your skinny arse in gear, Weasley!_

Rose squeezed her eyes.

 _Dammit Albus._

* * *

 _"A barrel?_ " The Head screeched at the troupe of dejected-looking aurors, nostrils flaring. " _How in Merlin's shitty bloomers did you let him make off with a whole barrel of time-turner dust?_ "

"We scoured the floor high and low sir, honest." stammered a skittish looking man. "We can't seem to piece together how he-"

"Sort it out." The Head turned, storming away. "I've trained you lot better than this. Till then, pay cuts for everyone."

This was followed by a clamor of groans.

* * *

"Must be killing you, not knowing how I did it."

Her head snapped toward at him.

"The barrel?" he specified.

Her arms folded. "Don't care."

"Not possible."

"I'm not speaking to you. Go away," she said coldly, and with that turned the cheek to him. She was delirious, exhausted, and unabashedly angry with him for the excessive stunt he'd pulled, among other things. Needless to say, the moment of relief had passed.

An eye-roll; he ambled up the stairs and over, so they were standing side-by-side against the rail, their shoulders touching. He nudged her.

"Didn't expect your cousin to pull through?"

"You're a filthy show-off," she responded with obvious disdain.

He turned to her, resting his chin on top of her shoulder. "You can't stop trying to figure it out, can you? Go on. How did I do it then? What's my secret?" He pressed a kiss at her shoulder, a sly look in the eyes. "I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours."

Unflinchingly, she stared away. "I'm not playing this game."

"All games are played in pairs Rose Pose."

"Tell me, did you enjoy killing those men?" Her voice went an octave higher than it was earlier. "Because in the reports it certainly looked like you had a lot of fun with it."

He was silent then, processing her words.

"How long have you known?"

"Long enough."

"Why ask a question like that?"

"Stand at a distance."

"No." His eyes narrowed: Her moods were atrocious. "Why protect me?"

"Shut up, arsehole. You think I want to lose any more family? We're all we've got in this hellish world." She moved away and turned to glare at him. "Make me understand it. Why you did it."

"No."

"Why?"

"Because you don't want to understand. You want something to help you sleep."

"Then tell me it was an accident. Tell me you regret it. Make me think I'm doing the right thing- _convince me, dammit._ " She kicked a nearby bin, watching it tumble down the stairs, before turning back to him. "You've never had a problem lying before. You've never had a problem lying _ever_."

"You say it like it's a bad thing."

She laughed cruelly: this whole conversation was _brilliant_. "We've always had very different ideas of what's good and bad, Albus."

"But we make the same type of decisions." He stepped closer. "Have you ever noticed that? I have. It's because we have the same strategy. Fate deals us a bad hand and we play the hell out of it. We've always gambled our lives to get what we want. It's not sin, Rose, it's _habit_."

"I'm not like you."

"Are you sure?" His voice could've been lithe, maybe even humorous, but something unnerving in his stare belied the joke. He tilted his head.

"Hm, maybe you're right. After all, _you_ put the nation on crisis awareness watch. _You_ caused a massacre in Diagon Alley. _You_ aid the man that's out to overthrow the Minister. And now, you're _knowingly_ committing treason with me, aren't you?"

Guilt walloped in her stomach. "That's not—"

"And you knew what would happen when you saved Hugo," he interrupted. "But you did it anyway _._ You make the same choices and again thinking the outcome will be different. See…" The corners of his mouth lifted into a poisonous smile. "You're nothing more than a hypocrite."

"Stop talking," she growled.

"Am I wrong?"

No response.

"You could end this, you know. If you wanted. Incriminate your boss, hand yourself in, take Azkaban. Take the red label off your chest. Make the moral choice and see what it gets you." He gave a bark of a laugh, but Rose could hear the strain at the end of it. Somehow, it crushed her.

"It won't always be like this," she whispered. "Things will change once we find our parents."

The words sounded hollow when she said them, like a plea too old to have any substance left. It was a platitude a child repeats to herself. It was the draining of marrow in her bones; and she could feel the rest of her ticking away with it. The imagination for a silver lining was quickly fading. But even if Albus was right, she just couldn't admit it.

Not yet.

* * *

 **Notes:** _ **Dying was a tragedy. Death, however, was a science**_ **–this line is paraphrased from Rotters by Daniel Kraus.**


	12. Hunt

Healers rubbed elbows as they clamored around Hugo.

They stripped him naked—his smallness even more glaring when brought under scrutiny—taking measurements of arms, legs, waist, groin… how he wished his not- _that_ -much-older sister would have the sense to look away. Fluorescent lights highlighted every mole on his hairless chest and hid no secret between his legs.

His ears burned with humiliation.

No deepening voice, hair in weird places, gawkiness, or muscles forming over spaghetti-string limbs. What he would've given for a pimple.

He was fifteen and hadn't hit puberty.

Magic had brought him back to life but stunted his physical growth interminably. Her miserable stare told him she knew but had no answers for him. This didn't make him mad. It left him feeling guilty. It should have been enough for her to challenge Death and come out alive—but to want more?

How could he be so greedy?

Since his miraculous resurrection, the literal Boy-Who-Lived had sent ripples through the world of magic, or more specifically, the world of magical medicine. Healers from all over England ached to come to St. Mungo's to take a gander at Boy Wonder and try their hand at solving his case. Rose wasn't allowed to talk about the spell for obvious reasons; the ministry forbade any replication for her magic. It was an obvious political decision, not only because the public was divided on the matter, but other countries threatened to forcibly intervene if England pursued further experimentation. They said it was a miracle Rose wasn't in prison and Hugo wasn't in a lab somewhere, for which he knew they had the Head to thank—the cruel, hellish man was their inadvertent guardian angel.

And Rose didn't want to face this. She didn't realize how _well_ things had worked out for them in the scheme of things. Just like she didn't realize she was only two years older than him. A girl—albeit an annoying stubborn one who couldn't keep her head out of trouble—but a teenager that needed just as much looking after as he did.

Today, dark circles rimmed her brown eyes. Wrinkled clothes, hair unkempt, fingertips tinged- yellow from tireless potion making; She'd gotten into the very thing he'd hoped against. He could see _obsessive potion making_ and _late nights with Albus_ written all over her face. She was falling back into the haze of self-inflicted loneliness that had plagued her in their shared childhood, hunched over cauldrons and potion protocols. No friends. No mention of a potential boyfriend— _Sure you're scary Rosie, but you're not ugly. You could snag a bloke if you wanted_. Instead, the one person she had once again latched onto was the one who heightened her mania.

Both friend and boy but _never both_ — cruel addiction was magic and Albus was magic, or maybe magic was Albus? It didn't matter which came first. It was the same. He was an ally, a rival, a partner, a _brother_ … and still managed to pull her heart in a way no one else could. He could be everyone without needing to be anyone at all. And this was the scary part.

He was no one to her, to them. He was the lingering shadow of past mistakes. Of lost childhoods. Of wasted hope.

Of missing parents and other ideas too cruel to exist.

* * *

"Weasel!" The blond boy gasped, his blood staining the floor. "Quick, get Albus!"

Rose froze. Moments before the crackling sound of apparition she had been in the middle of making a sandwich, taking a break from the all-important potion while Albus tinkered away.

Now strawberry-jam knife clattered to the ground as Scorpius moaned, and her footsteps disappeared to the other room. They reappeared in seconds with the aforementioned cousin; clad in potion's apron, he stood looking bored, annoyed by the intrusion of it all.

Rose stated the obvious: "He's splinched himself!"

"Clumsy git."

Pulling a wand, Albus stooped and turned the writhing boy over to his back. Blood ceased draining. A whimper escaped his tightly-pressed grimace at such a bold inspection of his wound.

Albus turned to Rose—"It's deep. You'll need to run to the apothecary and get essence of dittany."

She threw Scorpius an anxious look and disapparated.

With a resigned sigh, Albus removed his working apron and rolled up his sleeves. Throwing Scorpius a towel — _put pressure on it, Malfoy_ — he walked over to a cabinet and returned with a bottle of dittany, water, and a spoon. Outraged by this deception, Scorpius attempted a scowl but managed nothing more than a grimace.

"You're shit at apparating under pressure. So I had a feeling."

"Bastard," he wheezed.

A spoonful of yellow substance pressed against his mouth, forcefully. "You made sure you weren't followed?"

"Yes." The putrid-tasting powder made him shudder, but the pain dulled in seconds. Though afraid to look down, Scorpius could feel the ends of his severed flesh rejoin. He swallowed water like his throat was on fire. "They caught my bluff. It was going well 'til they figured out I wasn't interested in their ruddy bird club. Pissed 'em off…chased me eight straight blocks—"

"And how long did it take for them to figure it out?"

"What does it matter? They branded me, Potter. _Branded me_." Irritably shifting to an upright position, Scorpius rolled up his right sleeve and extended his pale arm out to the boy. A black crow enigma scaled across the bicep.

"Sexy," came the lofty chuckle.

"Don't you start," Scorpius muttered, running agitated fingers through his hair. "Mum'll kill me if she gets an eyeful of it. Probably think I've joined one of those cults for vampires."

"Looks like the Dark Mark doesn't it? You and your father might have one thing in common now."

A pained groan. "Just make it go away, Potter."

With the simple utterance of a charm, the inky mark began to blotch away. Then the arm retracted and Scorpius, face still crumpled, stoked the still-tender spot with his thumb.

" _Ordine Corvis_. Latin. Means Order of Crows. I guess that's pretty apparent since their animagi are—"

"Yes. Next."

"So impatient—mhmm!" His drawl cut short by more powder in mouth, Scorpius spat the excess out and glared at the boy. "Graham Paisley. Only heard the name so don't sodding ask me what he looks, sounds, or smells like. After the tattoo…well I didn't exactly stay for the meet-and-greet part of the ceremony."

"Pity."

Scorpius ignored this. "Have any ideas what he might want with you?"

"Many," Albus spoke colorlessly, dusting excess powder off himself and standing. "It's not a priority right now."

"Oh right, I forgot you send me on life-threatening scavenger hunts for _fun_."

"I've never given you a task you couldn't handle."

"I should learn to say no."

"You've always been free to walk away."

A pause. A challenge.

"No?" A smirk lolled over the boy's mouth. "Must be _really_ dull in Daddy's castle if you're wanting to waste time with me. But I suppose it gets tiring, spending money, having parties, screwing girls all the time—"

"It's not the same when you've seen more."

This was followed by a silence that almost marked agreement. The reverence attached to such a simple gesture was more than any ridiculous apology Scorpius may have wanted, or Albus was been willing to give. Both boys knew this. They had always shared a distaste for the commonplace, the mundane; it was what held them together in school.

It was what held them together now.

"Come along Malfoy—I think Rose made a sandwich. Then, I want to show you something."

* * *

Rose apparated back to the house clutching a dozen bottles of dittany to her chest, but the boys were missing, along both halves of her sandwich. Curious green smoke wafted from somewhere. Perplexed, she followed it upstairs to her old bedroom. She heard intellectual chatter:

"-time turner dust will unfold the memories of where it was last used-"

"—so what's with the floo powder—"

"—transports us to these locations—"

The two boys sat on her old Gilderory-Lockhart-face-sheeted bed behind a fuming cauldron, with halves of her sandwich in their hands. At the sight of her, they stopped talking. Scorpius politely put down his half, turning red. Albus finished his just to spite her.

All the bottles fell at once.

"You're _ok_?"

"...yeah. Erm, sorry about that," the blond stammered, watched as color returned to her livid face.

"So making me think you were hurt, making me run to the apothecary- that was a _prank_?"

"What— _of course not!_ " the boy insisted at the same time the Albus said: "yes."

They shot each other a glare.

"You should at least agree on your cover story," she said icily. "That's how lying usually works."

"Afraid we didn't have the time Rose Pose-"

"Weasel, I _swear_ I really was—"

"-and if you're trying to decide between anger and relief, I recommend the latter," Albus continued, now looking bored. "It'll save the time I normally reserve for your yelling and we can skip this pointless interlude."

" _And you ate my sandwich_ —"

It was just before she could finish that her insufferable cousin Silenced her.

* * *

Scorpius was coming with them. He _insisted_.

 _Can't you see how dangerous this is?_ Rose tried yelling. _We have no idea where we'll end up._ Reasoning. _And we're breaking the law!_ More yelling. _If we get caught—_

" _Weasel,_ " came the lazy drawl. "This might be news to you, but Potter and I've been _not getting caught_ since First Year."

"Your dad's a lawyer."

"See? I have a get-out-of-azkaban-free card."

He countered her scowl with a cheeky grin.

Rose folded her arms. "You can't duel Malfoy. You always got yourarsewhupped in the inter-House duels – till Albus or one of the older Slytherins stepped in for you."

"It was _Fourth Year_ , Weasel. And just because I'm crap at apparating doesn't mean I'm crap at everything." He lifted his chin a little. "I'll have you know– no one makes a portkey like I do."

Rose had no intention of letting the former Slytherins team up against her. But as she readied for further argument, her cousin sent her a stare so severe she forgot what she meant to say.

"Scorpius makes excellent portkeys," was all he said.

Scorpius was coming whether she liked it or not.

* * *

It was necessary to discuss logistics before they took the literal plunge. The potion had reached a state of critical reactivity, its fumes filling the house with green smoke. Rose made frantic last minute adjustments to it, hair flying wildly out of her ponytail, while Albus paced as he did when he was deep in thought. Scorpius, bored, balanced on the back legs of his chair.

"Hold it, Potter. Explain it all again… _from the beginning._ "

The boy turned and glared at him. "Pay attention."

" _I was._ Then you went on that tangent in Latin… just go through it again, alright? I'll take notes this time."

"I've read through the schematics for weeks now and I still don't think I understand it all," Rose admitted.

"Do you two require pictures?" Albus snapped, icily.

"Yes," they responded in kind.

Albus gave an eye-roll and continued his impatient pacing across the room. "It's simple. The potion is set up to have the properties of a pensive. Except it uses the memories of objects. In this case, my father's wand."

"So I've got a question—" Scorpius tried to quip before a silencing charm hit his mouth.

" _I wasn't done._ Now, through a combination of properties too complex for you to wrap your mind around, we'll be able to access locations from these memories—locations where the wand was used. Mind, all this happens in a matter of seconds. The wand serves as a catalyst for the whole transfer of energy."

Albus paused to look expectedly at Scorpius, who, stuck on mute, just raised a finger. Rose took enough pity to remove the hex, but didn't return the grateful smile _he_ shot her way, no doubt still peeved from the earlier incident. She turned to her cousin:

"We won't get to choose the order it takes us in."

"Correct. It will go from the last place the wand was used, to the second last, and so forth…. _what Malfoy?_ "

"I had a question."

"Make it quick," Albus spoke tersely.

"Well, in that case I guess I have _two_ questions."

He fell out of his chair but dodged the silencing charm in time.

"Don't get your apron in a knot, Potter," he sniggered, clutching his shoulder. "One, where did you get time-turner dust? My dad says the ministry-"

"Stole it. Next question."

Scorpius cast Rose an inquiring look, but she didn't meet his gaze, busy transferring green frothy liquid from the cauldron to cups. A strange form of jealousy burned inside him; it appeared the cousins were keeping secrets—and getting into a fair amount of trouble without him.

"Fine then," he murmured, standing up and taking a cup from her. "Well, I guess I don't see what the point of all this is."

"We're trying to find our parents, Malfoy."

"Well I know _that_." He angled an eyebrow at her. "But you just assume your parents are in the same place as Potter's dad. And that his wand will lead you straight to them. Don't you see how improbable that sounds?"

"Yes," she said—admitted: "But it's all we've got right now."

Bringing the cup to his lips, Scorpius didn't ask any more questions.

* * *

For a moment, there was nothing but darkness and wind. A vortex, tearing through her feet and swallowing her whole; fingers, legs, arms stretched at ends as she hurtled through blackness. It was more brutal than apparation. When she landed, face and knees onto dirt, there was no sound. Then deafness inverted itself and her skull shook with the mounting of noise so severe that tears built at her eyes.

"—took a detour, eh Weasel—"

"—didn't drink all the potion—"

She clasped hands over her ears; the cacophony of familiar voices throbbed against her eardrums. Thousands of frenzied sensations returned at once: touches, sounds, voices. Her mouth fell open to let out a cry of pain, her skin burning in sharp agony from something— _someone_ —touching her. Neck straining, eyes spinning, fingers splayed digging up dirt as she was pulled off the ground. She turned around twisting, trying to break free; legs pedaled and her body jerked, her waist ripping free from the grip— _Shit Rose!_ — landing her shins to ground.

"She's hurt!"

"No she isn't."

"She's bleeding!"

" _She's not hurt, Malfoy,_ " the voice said sharply and a hand smacked hard across her face, triggering a thousand small pains. Her eyes snapped open.

The first thing she saw were the pale faces of Albus and Scorpius. Behind them was a large expanse of trees and nothing else. Branches protruded from ashen tusks in a canopy of broken limbs. The air felt cold and clammy, punctured with a smoky residue that made her chest constrict. There was dead stillness all around them.

"Where are we?" she said hoassly. "What's going-"

"Weasel." Scorpius stared at her, wide-eyed. "You're… bleeding."

"I'm not cut."

"We know."

Eyes wandered over perishing plain, smoky air, her own damaged body—her pants. Stained red. _Shit._ A spark of embarrassment flared inside her, and the two boys looked equal parts daunted and perplexed.

"Turn around you perverts," she ordered sharply.

Scorpius spun around at brilliant velocity, cheeks tinged red. Albus looked offended.

"You drank all the potion."

"I drank all the potion."

"You're not _supposed_ to take it during your period. It induces hypersensitivity to physical stimuli and makes it really dangerous to travel-"

" _Why didn't you tell me this earlier you bastard?_ "

Scorpius began to slowly shuffle away.

Albus gave a blink. He opened his mouth, then closed it. Then opened it again. "I recall it was in the notes. I, must've slipped my mind to verbally mention—"

"Slipped your mind? _Slipped your mind?_ " She wanted to strangle him right then. " _I'm a girl you bastard, so there's always a chance I'm_ —you know what? It doesn't matter. Just leave me alone."

Lifting onto rickety limbs, she failed to steady herself and nearly slipped. Both boys lunged to catch her but Albus was closer. He grabbed her arm, pulling it over his shoulder, and clasped a hand at her waist. Then they were moving. Pressure had built behind her eyes, blurring shapes and faces and making her flinch at the slightest movements. Her hand gripped his in painful anxiety, nails digging into his palm.

Many shaky steps later, the support ended and her legs landed on something soft.

"She'll be out for a few hours. Scorp… you'll have to stay with her."

"Sure thing."

"Wait, where are you going?" Her hand instinctively groped the air for his arm, but he had pulled it out of her reach. "Wait Albus, _Albus!_ "

The following silence, in addition to her near blindness, terrified her.

Another arm wrapped her shivering figure. "Hey, _hey_ , Weasel." Scorpius' voice was warm and reassuring, lulling her nerves. "He'll be back. You need to lie down." He angled her body to the ground and draped a cloak over her, staying near as her anxious hands clasped at his arm. Rose just wanted to keep him talking, filling the gaps where her vision had deserted her. Terror and curiosity struck in black fragments. This was the last place Uncle Harry had used his wand—what did that mean? What would they find here? Bodies?

No doubt, Albus had begun the search without her.

The sky was a grey-blue looking more like a continuation of the previous night when she awoke buried in a mesh of mismatched blankets, her sight returned. The boys had scavenged to make some sort of camp—the area covered from all angles by a visible shield charm. Scorpius was huddled in his jacket a few feet away. Albus was still missing, though she noticed crushed cigarette butts in the space close beside her.

Throbbing pain struck her stomach and she considered breakfast: They had brought generic foodstuff (bread, jam, tea), but not enough to last them more than a handful of days. They'd have to work quickly. She re-lit the fire with an enchantment, then moved to wake her snoring companion.

"Aggh," The boy moaned, turning away. "Fucking hell Weasel."

"It's morning. We're have to get moving."

Grey eyes shot open. "Potter told me to stay put until he sorts this out."

"Do you _always_ do what he tells you?"

He rubbed his messy hair and yawned: "Course not. But on the premise that I don't know a single fucking thing about this place, I'd rather stay where I don't get eaten."

"What, you're afraid of a few deer and antelope?"

"That's not what I heard last night."

The air between them vibrated at these words.

But since last night, Rose's confidence had returned and she refused to give way to fear again. It would be humiliating if, given her brutal auror training, she couldn't hold her own with the two hardened Slytherin boys— she wasn't some little girl, regardless of how Albus tried to make her feel. All she needed was her wand and a plan.

Swinging her bag over her shoulder, she began walking. Scorpius staggered to his feet and threw himself in her way. Rose noticed he stood a whole foot taller than her.

"Move Malfoy," she muttered, annoyed at having to stare up at him.

"Potter said—"

"I don't care what he said," she snapped. "He doesn't always know what's best. He doesn't always _do_ what's best. Don't you see he's ditched us?"

Stating this fact brought on the searing feeling of betrayal. Rose burned knowing Albus probably thought they'd get in the way.

"You don't have a lot of faith in him, do you?" Scorpius harrumphed.

She didn't answer, her pony-tail swinging as she walked past him. "You coming?"

* * *

"Can't believe it's getting dark already."

"Afraid of the dark Malfoy?"

"Sure I am." He flashed her a grin. "Hold my hand?"

An eye-roll: they made their way through the endless haze of trees, circumventing holes and fallen logs. Orange-tinted leaves shuffled way with the wind, blowing against their bodies. Twigs and other shrubberies rustled under their shoes—and these were the only noises they heard. The forest was dead silent.

After several moments, Scorpius nudged her. "Any idea what we're looking for?"

"Not yet."

"So we're just traveling aimlessly. Nice. As far as shoddy plans go, Weasel…."

"It's better than waiting around for Albus," she said bitingly, turning to him. "What, you don't think he planned this? Ditching us here and exploring on his own?"

"He probably has a reason."

"Stop giving him the benefit of the doubt, it's annoying," she huffed, "And anyway, aren't you a little angry too? He brought you along to stick you with Rose-duty."

"I don't mind Rose-duty," he said loftily.

Her cheeks tingled with heat. "He's not your friend, Malfoy! All he does is take advantage of you!"

"Sure he does." A pause. "That doesn't mean we're not friends." Another pause as he tucked his hands into pockets. "Potter's in denial."

Disbelief crossed her face. " _You're_ in denial. Good Lord. And I thought this only happened to girls with him."

Scorpius remained disaffected by the comment.

"Well you know what they say about Slytherin boys." He nudged her, strolling beside her. "Thicker than blood, slicker than oil."

"Slipperier too."

"You think it's sexy."

"I have better things to think about, Malfoy."

"Spoken like a Ravenclaw."

Scorpius noticed how pink her face had gone and felt compelled to continue. "You know, I was almost a Ravenclaw too." He nudged her, again. "It was close. In the end, the Sorting Hat let me choose. Went with what I thought would piss my father off the least. But sometimes I wonder."

A snort. "Thought you loved pissing off your dad."

"Fair point, Weasel. But even _I_ wouldn't go that far."

"You sure? Isn't that why you do the wrong things, make the wrong friends, chase the wrong girls?"

"Girls? I'm chasing…girls? What girls am I chasing Weasel? You'll have to be more specific."

Her face grew shades deeper. "Oh please."

"Girls? Like plural?"

In that instance something scurried past them so fast it nearly threw Scorpius off his feet. Its movements, quick and shifting, made it impossible for Rose to shoot it down with a hex. With wands out, they lurked toward the shrub behind which it had disappeared.

"Seriously Weasel, what girls?"

She shushed him, edging closer to pull the shrub apart.

It was a pale, slimy deformed-looking slug with what looked like a half grown shell. The shell had holes sticking out every which way. It had no eyes, but sported several sets of sharp teeth. Green pus trickled down the grey flesh of its belly. Scorpius clasped a hand over his nose to evade the smell of rotten fish, and began to edge back.

"Wait." She grabbed his sleeve. "Look, I think it's hurt."

"Oh sure, let's help the thing with _fangs_."

In that instant, sparks shot out of the shell's openings, propelling it forward. They leapt backwards. It was, then, the previous Care of Magical Creatures students realized exactly what it was.

"Blast-"

"-Ended-Skrewt." Scorpius finished, yanking them backwards. "Fuck, _fuck!_ "

There were things every previous Care of Magical Creature student remembered, even after the horrible lessons with Hagrid dissecting flobberworms. Blast Ended Skrewts, for instance, were not to be taken lightly. Even the larvaes were lethal. The adults, on the other hand, stood ten feet tall and wore jagged, impenetrable shells, their bodies manifest of fire. _They traveled in packs._

They scrambled to their feet too late. More had begun to emerge from all angles in the forest. The larger beasts snarled, compact in thick rugged shells brimming with flames. Then there was the sound of torrents—a dozen unanimous volcanoes—ready to fire.

"Wand out Malfoy," Rose whispered tersely, her hand clutching his sleeve. "Stick close to me."

* * *

There was something vaguely familiar about this particular forest to Albus, with how the sun never seemed to shine, the haze never seemed to dissipate, and with how the only creatures were magical and deadly. It was all too-suspicious.

Even the dementors were familiar.

His lungs deflated as the cloaked horrors swooped forward, magical wind swirling around them. Feet gave way under him as one brought its hood to eye-level, his knees landing on hard dirt. Pain reverberated through bones, but Albus could not feel it. He felt himself grow more empty, senseless, life being suctioned through his mouth. Mental functions waned. Wand hung loosely between fingers as his body lifted in the air, his hair floating around his limp head. There were no thoughts, only hollow memories as his soul was vacuumed through his shell of a body.

 _Dementors prey on the emotions of their victims. Give them nothing to find._

There it was, the memory he had been looking for.

Every muscle in his body clenched at once, fingers tightening around wand.

He was back.

Albus didn't hate his father—no, _that_ explanation was too convenient.

Sons worshiped their fathers in whatever form they could.

Harry Potter was a contradiction of expression, all benign smiles and vague words and familiar-eyes that crinkled of not malice but kindness, both a man called _dad_ and a complete stranger. He was cleverer than Albus in a way only few people were, and even as a young age the boy had been wary of this fact. Mum and James and Lily and other family did not see him—sure they knew he was cunning—but they did not _see_ him. They did not understand him at the way father did, they could _not_ fathom the magnitude of his mind—how he held limitless potential for knowledge, for understanding. He was curious. He was _bored_. Very little about the social world appealed to him. He absorbed all that his father taught him, wrapping lessons into the folds of his brain, and between the father and son formed a bond that was unmatchable.

People didn't understand; sure they knew the stories like everyone knew the stories, of how the Chosen One had bested a dementor at fourteen—but Albus was not his father.

He had done it at ten.

 _"Are you ready, Albus?" His father's voice called from somewhere._

 _The small boy nodded, swallowing his fear. His wand shook between sweaty fingers. Deep breaths followed, along with a mantra so private it could almost have been a prayer:_

 _Dementors prey on the emotions of their victims. Give them nothing to find._

 _His father waited as patiently as he always did._

 _Finally, the boy gave a confident nod and the vaults opened. His eyes peered frantically through the darkness for his opponent._

 _There it came: the black cloaked wisp hurtling towards him like tornado wind._

 _It grabbed him by the small neck and slammed him to a tree._

 _Absorbed in panic, he choked out the enchantment._

 _Weak—but it granted temporary relief and landed him to his knees. He shifted backwards, lifting to his feet, and began to run. Wisps of darkness shot forward circling his small waist, dragging backwards, and he gasped at the coldness of their touch. He tore through and kept running. He had always been a runner. There was an impulse to keep running, keep running and never look back._

 _He dodged behind a tree, breathing hoass, a heart attack waiting inside his skin. His nerves were on fire. He could not remember ever being so scared. He cursed his dad, who was strange, who was cruel, who had trapped him in his own private hell._

 _No._

 _His father never gave him a task he couldn't handle; the certainty of this notion implied the man cared for him. Loved him, even. And not in the useless way his mum did, all hugs and kisses and empty 'I love you's, but the sort of way that did not have to be shown. The sort of way that would make him stronger, braver, better for it._

 _Rounding the tree, he pointed his wand and stood his ground against the quickly propelling dementor. Green-eyes shone bright, mouth etched in a fierce snarl—he had no happy memory to fuel his magic, only the sheer balls to face the monstrosity head on. And hate. He had so much hate he must've been made of it._

 _A surge of light shot out the end of his wand, so bright it was blinding, not a stag but a serpent with a mouth broad enough to swallow the dementor in one go._

 _His father's applause rang from somewhere._

* * *

He could see attacks in his mind before they happened. Visualize moves. Deduce mistakes.

Dementors cornered from all angles, lunging in turns— five, ten, _twenty at least_. Their jibes were as sharp and cold as the wind.

A golden arc flashed as he aimed a hex, propelling them backwards. They sprung back in waves.

Feet shuffled on instinct. Mouth spun spells by seconds. His body was a machine, hardwired with hundreds of hexes, jinxes, shields, knock-backs. He was on his toes sprinting as beams of light shot out the tip of his wand hitting back hoods.

Red, blue, silver, green, colors torpedoed meshing in the space between him and the dementors. Bullets of light hit targets with paper-thin precision. Sprightly dodging one Kiss, he threw another over by a flash of blinding magic. Undead swerved in all at once consuming him and again he was floating. Gravity disappeared as his feet lifted into the air.

He cast a silver arc of light slashing six Not-Living in half. A dozen shrill shrieks rang out. Specks of darkness wafted in the air like frozen raindrops before dissipating completely, and the rest retreated from such a boy that could Chill the Bones of a Dementor.

Dropping back to reality, to his feet, he tucked away his wand. He wiped the taste of death from his mouth, a smirk reigning. Shadows of nightmares sulked behind every corner, hissing and growling and whimpering: they were no threat to him. They were the prey and he was the _predator._

Except. Except, maybe, it wasn't _him_ they feared.

His mind wracked his memories for answers—he'd been here before and now he was missing something. He couldn't remember what the _real_ threat was, only that once the sun set and light left completely, he'd be-

"Albus!" came a call not far off.

His head swerved, finding the girl come hurtling towards him, wand pointed, the ends of her hair fire-tinged.

"Rose-"

 _"Repulso!"_

His body blew back slamming against the ground with bone-shattering force. He opened his eyes to find a wand at his throat. She stood over him, eyes fierce.

"I told you-"

"Save the spiel," she snapped. "You don't get to leave me behind. You do _not_ get to leave me behind for any reason!"

"Put your wand down Rose," he growled silkily.

Her hex had caught him off-guard—she'd never hit with such brutality before. She'd never hit him, _period_. He was too smart, too quick for her. This sudden improvement made him burn with anger.

The look on her face bordered conceit: she was far too pleased with herself.

He'd show her.

In split-second motion he caught her ankle, throwing her down, and reversed their positions. Positioning himself on top, he trapped her and yanked her head back by her hair.

"What do you think you're doing attacking me like that?!" he roared at her.

"None of this splitting up shit!"

"I'll do what I like!"

"I want answers as badly as you do!"

There passed a moment of intensity so great between them that Rose was actually frightened. You could see in the way her mouth quivered. He had pinned her against the ground by the arms. Green-eyes bore into hers, smug and cold and _empty_ —it was more than the glare of victory; no, there was something in his manner and Rose _knew_ , she simply knew picking this fight had been a mistake.

"Al," she spoke quietly. "Get off."

He did not budge.

A whimper escaped her. _"You're hurting me."_

A smirk. It pressed against the base of her neck, pleased and predatory.

He drew closer to such a point that Rose turned her neck away and squeezed her eyes, trembling. She was actually _trembling_. "Please," she pleaded, unsure what she was pleading for, knowing only that he was capable of _anything_ in that moment and she didn't want to fathom what that _anything_ meant. She had triggered something quite dangerous, and whatever direction he chose to take his anger would spell great pain for her.

But he did not hurt her.

"Rosie Posie." He pressed a kiss to her flinching eyelids. "Always thinking wicked thoughts about me. What happens when I stop being the scariest thing in your head hmm?"

Then, Rose felt the pressure from her arms lighten. Her eyes opened and he was off and away, tucking his wand away into his pocket. She sat up.

"Al-"

"Choose your battles more carefully next time."

He may have forgiven her, but that didn't mean they were cordial.

Moments later Scorpius came running, trying to shake a baby Blast-Ended Skrewt off his leg. He stopped and shot hex after hex at it until it fell off— _die, die, die!_ — kicking it until it finally stopped moving. With a sigh of relief, he looked up at the two of them.

"So what'd I miss?"

* * *

"Oi Potter, your shirt's torn. Toss it here."

The boy did not hear him at first, immersed in his cigarette and thoughts until Scorpius shouted about they could practically see his nipples. Then he just looked perplexed. Absently tracing fingers through his disheveled hair, he tried to decide whether his shirt did in fact hold enough tears to warrant being taken off. Yes— he removed it and tossed it over to the blond, before hunching back to his thoughts.

"What a good wife you are," Rose muttered.

"You sound jealous Weasel-bee." Scorpius fluttered his lashes at her. "I can mend your shirt too if you like."

"I can mend my own clothes, Malfoy."

"I know. I was making an innuendo."

"You're unbelievably transparent."

Scorpius plopped down beside her with a half-grin. Fire crackled in the small camp-space. Surprisingly enough, it had been Albus' idea to make stop until morning. Whatever he had encountered had set him on edge, moreso than Scorpius had ever seen him. He wouldn't eat. He wouldn't sleep. He didn't even bother making conversation, instead secluding away in his thoughts, puffing smoke.

The cousins were also avoiding each other, in the same way Scorpius remembered they used to do back in Hogwarts when they were in a tiff. It was like the _Cold War_ —everyone knew about it. They'd glare at each other in classes, hex each other out in the halls. Then Albus would offer some shitty (cleverly crafted) apology that Rose would refuse for a few days, making him mope around the dungeons.

" ..and he used to _mope_ Weasel."

"Not sure if I believe that," she said wryly.

"Well, it wasn't the _normal_ sort of moping. You know when Potter's upset, he gets more sadistic than usual. Well there were days every First Year was given _specific instructions_ to avoid him."

"Why are you telling me this?"

Scorpius kicked some pebbles and didn't meet her gaze. He supposed he didn't liked seeing siblings-or near siblings- fight, especially as viciously as Rose and Albus did. There was really no excuse for it.

"If I had a sister or a brother, I'd do anything for them too. Hell, I'd probably try to resurrect them like you. I s'pose it's human nature, to want to protect the people we're close to. People we love."

"Hugo's my only brother."

"Don't say that."

"Albus doesn't love me—I don't think he even can," she continued, bitterly. Saying it, now, gave it the sort of finality that made her eyes burn. She wiped them on her sleeve. Scorpius was tactful enough to change the subject altogether; They chattered about what the plan for tomorrow was; About where he had set the portkey in case they had to leave. Then Scorpius bid her goodnight.

He quickly kissed her on the cheek before scrambling away.

Her face remained red long after he had disappeared into the tent.

She caught Albus glaring at her from the other side of the campfire.

They did not speak.

It grew darker and Scorpius was the only one asleep, his snores resonating though the camp in a strangely comforting way. Rose finished her fourth cup of tea. Albus worked his way through another packet of cigarettes. Neither consented to sleep—it was almost a competition.

"Go to sleep Rose. You'll be drifting off tomorrow."

She scowled, knowing he'd use the excuse to disappear again. "You go to sleep."

"Someone has to keep watch."

"Then I'll do it."

"Go cuddle with Malfoy," he spoke acidly. "Sure he'd love you in his bed."

She sighed: it would be a long night indeed if her cousin insisted on being so stubborn.

He glowered at her. "You don't attack me. Not when my back is turned."

"You've attacked me countless times with my back turned."

"It's different here. You don't attack me here… and I won't attack you."

"What's so special about here?"

He threw a dark look toward the trees, and Rose knew they had finally gotten to the gist of it. She wasn't as clever as Albus, but she knew how to keep three steps behind him. How to notice the anomaly in the anomalies. The forest was always still, always dead. The magical life in it - from the blast-ended skrewts to the dementors- was hungry, aggravated, desperate. They weren't predators. They were the prey, wounded, because there was _still_ something else out there. It was the reason Albus did not want to travel at night. It was also the reason he did not want her and Scorpius coming with him when he went last night.

"Something happened to them, didn't it?" she spoke quietly, "Here. And you knew before me. You knew something was wrong."

When he looked up again, she only saw the green of his eyes.

"It's been there for months—or years. I don't know. But all day it's been so strange, I mean, as if it's the first time I'm seeing it all again. Everything seems too sharp, too real." He swallowed, as if seized by an unpleasant thought. "It's like being close up to something so large you don't even see it. But you know it's there. I… I'm not sure how else to explain myself."

Rose could tell he was afraid that she'd failed to grasp his meaning, and that with his words he had only isolated himself.

"Hey." She didn't really understand, but she moved toward him with the intention of finding out. Because something was still wrong. There was something he wasn't telling her. "Al, tell me…what's special about this place?"

His mouth twisted, into what Rose could only describe as a pained parody of a smile.

"He brought me here before. This is where it all started."


	13. Burn

He'd missed something.

The boy who held such an extraordinary keenness for detail, who deduced thoughts, emotions, events from simple observation—Albus _didn't_ miss things. He didn't even need Legilimency to see how connivingly close Scorpius had grown to Rose in his weeks of absence. The girl in question didn't see it but, then, Rose saw very little anyway. She was too single minded to understand the subconscious, _near-futile_ intent of a serpent boy's smile, especially one as impulsive as Malfoy.

The fact of the matter was _Albus_ had seen it— and he had seen it coming for years. Rose and Scorpius had tip-toed around each other since First Year in the way history ( _their parents' history_ ) would bid them. Pretense for surnames may have dropped around adolescence, when hormones and tension intermingled creating awkward confrontations between the two. You could say Albus was the reason behind it; he aggravated the matter in the same way a bored child goes around poking sleeping animals—

To see what would happen, of course.

Now it must've bothered him, because he kept glancing over at them. He did not want to focus on it, but he couldn't _not_ notice the maddening proximity at which they chose to stand, the _hush-hush_ glances, the color that crept over her neck when he made a line…

The fact that when they traveled, she chose to walk beside _Scorpius_ instead of him.

Sunlight waned, trees casting spindly shadows over the terrain and the wandering trio.

The Forest was peculiar. It was as if something came awake in it moment you looked away. Albus could not explain it but felt it as prominently as a shift in air; wind picked and chilled running across the contours of their faces. Minutes earlier it had been still as death. His gaze steadfast, his feet led by means of memory—it was perplexing. While he could not recall exact details from his memories, his body somehow knew exactly where to go, as if some invisible force was guiding him by the finger.

"Potter," Scorpius spoke from behind him. "Sun's setting."

"We keep moving."

A dangerous decision, but he ignored Rose's look with the same apathy she had been ignoring him all afternoon [what she thought mattered little anyway]. They were getting closer—to what? He did not know and this vexed him [Patience had never been Albus Potter's finest attribute]. He knew he had missed something vital, but it made little sense to give predilection to fear of the _unknown_. Albus trusted his father much as he distrusted him-and his father was _very, very_ clever. Even in possible Death, Harry had not given up on his son: the childhood tests resumed with the same fervor.

[The thickening fog. The rustling of _not-quite-trees_ in the distance. The hurricane howl of the wind as the carnivore mouth of something _nocturnal_ swooped towards them with intensifying pace.]

They watched as the sun set, locking them in darkness.

* * *

"Al-"

"Shhh!"

The boy ignored her apprehensive look, gesturing for her and Scorpius to draw out their wands and keep their mouths shut. Sighs tinged the air like baby's breath, trees rustling with frenzied movements all around them. Then, abruptly, wind heightened like the whistling of a kettle. They clasped their ears as it rose to a pitch _not-quite-human._ Rose was almost glad they couldn't see anything through the dark.

Suddenly, the wind came to a standstill. So did her heart. Snarls manifested themselves through the silence and the wail of a dying animal rang out—first kill of the night. The scent of fresh blood mingled with the growing air. A horrible revelation struck Rose: if what attracted _whatever was out there_ was blood then—

Shit, _Shit._

A flash of light bounced from the tip of her wand, illuminating the crowd of _transclucent creatures_ surrounding them, all of assorted shapes and builds, hissing and snarling. They had malformed faces edged with sharp teeth and limbs that stretched out like snakes.

"What the hell are _those_?" Scorpius piped beside her, "Naked dementors?"

No. They were—the word caught in her throat— "Apparitions.

"They're worse than dementors." Albus spoke though a clenched jaw. "They don't know when to give up."

Ghosts stuck in perpetual earth-life—same as hell. Mindless spirits that haunted remote isolated corners of the world and preyed on all living creatures alike, often competing with other Undead like dementors for sustenance. Darkness may have woken them, but _blood_ summoned them. That was why they didn't go after Albus when he traveled alone the previous night.

But thanks to Rose, they would.

She shifted into back to back position with the boys, their wands out and bodies keenly attuned to dozens of translucent movements surrounding them. Strands of mist wafted around them—appendages—like dancing snakes.

Albus made the first move.

"Al!"

He threw a lethal spark of green cutting through a row of apparitions and knocking over a tree—"Run!" he growled at them.

They took off sprinting. The boys were significantly faster and when Rose began to fall behind, each grabbed an arm and pulled her forward. Suddenly a tentacle lunged and wrapped Rose's ankle—she yelped. It tore her from the boys' grasps and dragged her backwards like carpet. She yanked out her wand and twisted her torso, shooting the apparition back with _Reducto!_ Then she was up and locked in a duel with the furious wisps, lashing through their jellyfish-like bodies only to observe, in horror, as they regenerated before her eyes.

At the same time a larger, sharp-teethed apparition coiled at Scorpius who fell onto his behind, anxiously shuffling backwards; he attempted a shield charm but failed miserably, and instead threw hexes every which way on the off chance some of them would hit the apparitions. Unlike Rose's methodical dueling, Scorpius had no patience for _proper technique._ Sure he looked as if he were dancing the irish jig, but he was spontaneous and this made him unpredictable—he had a solid hit rate.

Albus was very different from either than them.

He attacked in short erratic bursts of energy, his movements quick and deliberate as if he could see all the opposing strikes in advance. He was elegance where Rose was brute strength, speed where she was technique. Accuracy. Form. _Power._ He moved with a swiftness she'd never seen in anyone else—he looked _good_ doing it. His profile was cold and flawless. He could've been a dancer, fluid, beautiful, and at complete ease with himself. It made Rose burn with envy; she was the one with brutal auror training, _she_ was the one who ought've been a superior duelist, and yet, it all came so easily to _him._

She had struggled her whole life to keep his pace and now, after all this time, it stung to know she was _still_ out of his league.

A spell flew near her face, jolting her out of her reverie, and then Albus stood in front of her. He gave her a shove backwards, glaring.

"Less staring and more fighting."

Her small body staggered before steadying herself. "I wasn't—"

"Move!"

She shot him a petulant look, but didn't argue, moving to help Scorpius escape from a horde of apparitions. His legs were completely wrapped in tentacles. "How do you kill something that can't die?" He grunted as Rose blasted them off one by one. A translucent appendage, snake-like, swung out and grabbed her by the neck pulling into its carnivore-tooth mouth. As she used her arms to hold it away, Scorpius cast a frantic _immobilus_ freezing the tentacle. Her breath came back as it fell to the ground, limp and severed. "It worked!" Scorpius was unabashedly relieved. "Hell yeah! Point one for humans!"

"Thanks," she said rubbing her neck, and he beamed at her. Together they began freezing the single apparitions.

Time passed like labored breaths and it grew unnaturally cold—the density of nonliving bodies had absorbed all the surrounding heat. Ice-tinged air wove in and out of their lungs. Apparitions swerved all around them, but Albus began moving further and further away from the others. Scorpius was preoccupied, knee-deep in tentacles again, but Albus felt Rose's perplexed gaze on him. She was pink-faced and shivering.

"I remember where I need to go." He threw her his jacket and she caught it. "The woods span out for two more kilometers. Beyond there's a pond. Meet me there with Malfoy."

"Please."

He gave her a quiet look. "You know what you're doing."

"I don't," her voice wobbled. "Please, I don't know how-"

"You'll be fine."

He was gone.

Words caught in the back of her throat. She could taste bile in her mouth, feel the pinprick of rising tears.

There it was: the inescapable sinking feeling only Albus could leave her with.

Realization set and set in fast: this was the day she would die. She would die in the vain attempt to kill Undead souls. She would die outnumbered. She would die out-skilled. She would die together with Scorpius, and alone still. Theirs would be a cruel death. She would die because that's what delicate flowers did in the cold- the temperature had hit an all-time low.

She felt the pulsing of veins in her arms. Her body was freezing. Her heart was racing a thousand miles a minutes. Her muscles convulsed with fatigue, verging on collapse.

To come so far and give up now?

 _No._

A spark of light torpedoed cutting through the wisps of silver wrapping Scorpius' neck. The boy fell to dirt in a swoop, desperately suctioning air.

She was not a flower, not really, or maybe the petals masked the lethal array of thorns covertly waiting underneath. A weed through and through, like the Head had told her. A guileless parasite. She would survive through this battle and many more to come. Survival was a art she'd learn, a habit she'd perfect, a skill with which she'd outlive her _entire_ race.

Tonight, she did not know this. Tonight, nothing else mattered except the lives of her and the blond-haired boy beside her, clutching at her fingers in unspoken fear.

Frozen apparitions had begun to break from their bounds, and slowly narrowed in on them.

It would be a long night indeed.

* * *

Sunlight shone through her drooping eyelids after what must've been hours. She wrapped Albus' jacket tighter around herself, willing his familiar scent of musk and smoke not to lull her to sleep. Two kilometers was a lot to cover with bruised limbs, and they couldn't risk nightfall again. Scorpius was splayed over the ground resting, his face raw and bleeding. She helped him up and they began moving—there was no time to waste.

"Weasel-"

"Don't defend him this time Malfoy."

Seeing the anger in her eyes, Scorpius didn't say anything further. The thousand aches in their bodies had merged a single consuming heaviness. They traveled in silence for a while, too tired for conversation.

At last the span of trees ended, stretching into a large expanse of dead grass. A body of water sparkled in the distance.

They spotted him.

Albus sat on the ground, calm, hand to brow in contemplation—his eyes were closed. He held very statuesque posture.

Rose wasted no time in drawing her wand: _"Reducto!"_

Her hex boomeranged and hit her square in the jaw, throwing her backwards.

Rebound shield charm: the scumbag knew her well.

 _No matter_ , Rose decided as she wiped blood from her mouth. Scorpius tried to hold her back, but she fought out of the blonde's grip, marching up to the heartless deserter. She didn't need magic to make him pay. She grabbed him by the shirt—his eyes tore open in surprise—and shoved him to the ground, collapsing on top of him in a violent fit of punching and kicking.

He grabbed her wrists, pausing her attempts to claw his eyes out.

"Fuck, Rose!"

 _"You left us with those...those things! We didn't even know how to fight them! We could've die—"_

"Get your hands _off_ of me!"

 _"I'll beat the shit out of you-"_

"What's the matter with you?" He growled in response. "I knew you'd be fine. Didn't I tell you that?"

"YOU BASTARD," She howled, coming at him with clenched fists. He, in turn, caught them and suffered a knee to the groin. Retaliating, he grabbed her long hair and pulled. _Let go!_ She bit his arm. He flipped and slammed her to the ground. She squirmed, kicking his shins repeatedly. He didn't budge.

Scorpius stared: two of the most brilliant young wizards he knew had resorted to fighting like children.

He grabbed Rose by the arm, pulling her away from the furious boy.

"All right, Potter, explanation time." He said, brow furrowed, "Why'd you ditch us?"

The boy stopped seething for a moment and sat up, adjusting back to his meditative position. "I remembered something." He closed his eyes, turning away from the two of them. "I was trying to remember more before I was _interrupted_."

Holding a snarling Rose back, Scorpius looked around. There was nothing there.

"Is there, erm, something special about this spot Potter?"

"Maybe," He sounded irritable. "Go away and let me think."

Shooed away—Scorpius and Rose sat at a distance, tending to their wounds and nibbling on sandwiches. Meanwhile Albus struggled to recall memories: he knew what he was looking for now.

There was something _in_ the ground.

A house-no- _shack_ his father used to bring him to. Burnt panes. Windows boarded from the inside. Albus must've been four. Harry never let him go inside it. He made Albus wait outside and listen to-what was it? Wailing? Screaming?

 _I fear, son, that history has a habit of repeating itself._

His eyes tore wide— _the enchantment!_ Harry said an enchantment to summon the shack from the ground; he never said it out loud, but Albus had seen his mouth movements several times. He was observant of details such as these.

 _Who will stop the new dark lords, Daddy?_

He closed his eyes and scanned his mind for the right words. It was in his head—he knew it. Everything he needed was already in his head!

 _"My dear Albus," Harry sighed, running a hand over the frightened boy's head, "I won't be around forever."_

What was his father hiding in the ground?

* * *

"You've told me about this before," I said excitedly. It was the very first memory of Albus and Harry she had described, and I remembered how confused I had been about it all. The fact we were touching on roots intrigued me but I couldn't imagine how it would come together in the scheme of things.

Rose gave a smile and told me what she always did:

"In due time, Mr. Walker."

The pen itched in my hand.

* * *

Scorpius tried to appease Rose, but the girl would hear none of it. _Don't defend him, Aren't you angry too? You should be angry!_

Scorpius knew that sort of strong emotional response would matter little to Potter today.

He hadn't moved from his spot in _hours._

Potter had never been open with him, not really. He kept things on a need-to-know basis. Even so, intuition developed from six years of companionship told Scorpius something was bothering the boy. The blatant disregard for others had to be attributed to something.

Rose pulled at strands of grass like they were the boy's hair, fuming. "Oh he's absolutely _cold._ "

"Sure he is."

"He doesn't give a damn about anyone but himself. We could've died! You don't abandon your friends when they're in _danger._ "

"I thought you said Potter didn't have friends."

The anger sulked and a wave of embarrassment flooded her face. "I don't know," she admitted quietly. "It's just-"

"-wishful thinking?" He prompted.

Her face pinched and she looked away from him. She was still wearing Potter's jacket, even though it wasn't cold anymore. Maybe it was force of habit. His mind flit to the questionable rumors that had plagued Hogwarts about them, the ones he'd always known better than to believe.

The fact of the matter was Albus was closer to Rose than he was; Scorpius hadn't thought much of it before. It's not something he should've been thinking about right then, but he _was_ thinking about it. He knew Rose had trust issues; all this time he'd attributed her emotional distance to the missing parents, the sick brother, the dangerous career, to bringing back the dead and putting the nation of Magical Crisis Watch. All were reasons he hated, but understood regardless.

Who knew he'd have to break through _Albus' jacket_ to get to her?

He bit the inside of his cheek, studying her: the powdered freckles on her face, the curve of her jaw, the tilt in her small mouth, the halo of light circling her dyed-brown scalp—he preferred her old hair style, red and flowing. Then her eyes: Albus had once joked about them being the unappealing color of mud, but Scorpius liked their earthy contemplative look. He wouldn't admit that he thought about them (amongst other things) late at night, stretched out over his bed, facedown in a pillow. The fact he had once, by accident, nearly seen her naked taunted him in these private moments: what he claimed was funny was also agonizing.

She'd had no problem holding his hand the night before. But that it was day now, and they were no longer running danger, she had lost reason to.

Scorpius hoped they'd have more opportunities to be in danger together.

* * *

"Oi arsehole!"

Scowling, Albus opened an eyelid and found the pair walking to him.

"Get us up to speed," Scorpius plopped down beside him, grinning. "Let's see if we can refresh that memory of yours."

"Summoning enchantment," was all he muttered.

It was all Rose and Scorpius needed: they began listing.

 _"Erecto."_ Him.

 _"Finite Incantatem"_ Her.

 _"Defodio."_

"Domicilium Revelio."

"Accio?"

Rose blinked at his First-Year worthy guess. " _Shit_ , Malfoy."

" _Shit_ is an expletive, not an enchantment," Albus said, still annoyed with her. "And you're both wrong."

"How about _Herbivicus_?" Scorpius offered.

Rose arched an eyebrow at the blond. "Did you sleep through _all_ of Charms?"

"Maybe." A sheepish grin. "Flitwick has a ridiculously soothing voice."

Hours must've passed. Rose paced back and forth throwing out every spell that came to her mind. Albus sat with chin propped on knit fingers, hunched over in thought. Scorpius lied in the grass, blowing dandelions and yawning.

"Does it start with a c?"

" _Aparecium._ " Rose was yawning now too.

"What about a t?"

" _Vocare aedificium._ "

"I'm feeling a r, Potter," He stretched his arms out lazily. "Going once, going twice-"

"R," Albus agreed and the blonde grinned.

His father must've concocted the spell, Albus decided, so there was no point in trying to guess something premade. They started throwing out letters and syllables, until, as it seemed, he had it put together.

He stood and walked over to the barren patch of dirt, casting the spell. A rumbling sounded and they all stepped away. Out of the ground came rising the dilapidated shack-house Albus had witnessed many years ago. Colors had faded further, resembling burnt shades of brown and washed grey.

It looked smaller now.

Almost simultaneously they started toward it. Rose watched the boys moved closer, and then stopped. "Do you hear that?" Scorpius asked the other boy who gave a terse nod. Then they turned towards Rose awaiting confirmation.

"Hear what?"

There was a sound, faint like the howling of the wind.

Suddenly, both boys threw hands over their ears, dropping to the ground. Their bodies twisted and squirmed, eyes screwed shut. Fists clenched into dirt with painful fervor, knuckles turning paste-white. Rose watched in horror as their faces went blue, as though all the oxygen was being suctioned from their bodies.

They could not hear her yell.

" _Shack,_ " Albus managed to choke out, his lips blue.

Rose grabbed her wand and shoved into the house. She heard a faint hum when she entered, almost like the mechanical whirring of a toy helicopter. Anxiously looking around, she found the shack barren.

"Hello?"

No response.

There's a door in the back from the sound grew stronger—locked. Approaching, the first sound softened and she heard another noise, one almost sounded like a wounded animal. When she pressed her ear to the door, she could've sworn she heard _human_ voices. She tried calling out. She tried every spell can think of. It was hopeless; the charm was unlike she'd ever seen before. She tried kicking and yanking and slamming against the door.

Nothing.

She ran back outside and found, to her silent horror, that Scorpius had gone completely limp. Blood made streams from his ears onto grass. Albus was only barely conscious.

"Kill it whatever it is." His brow was strained, face livid. "Rose please."

She bent down, voice fragmenting as she tried to explain what she had encountered: Barren shack. Door locked. The voices she'd heard. Her parents. _Their parents?_

Brow screwed in pain, he rattled his head. "Burn everything," he said miserably.

"What? I can't-"

"BURN IT," he snarled at her, and she winced, his fingernails digging into the soft flesh of her forearm. "BURN IT OR WE DIE."

There was a blur of motion as she ran back towards the shack. She lifted her wand, hot tears springing to her eyes. There was no time to think. There was no time to consider the voices in the locked room, or the possibility that they belonged to _actual people._ Guilt knifed her gut: what had happened at Diagon Alley would take place again. History would repeat itself. She'd commit an unfathomable horror to save two lives. Rose would not understand the magnitude of her actions that day until many, many years later.

Fire was everywhere, flames licking the air like twisting serpents.

She bit back a hysterical sob and, with shaky hands, pulled out the vial of potion that would return them home. She enchanted the unconscious boys to her, and together, they vanished away.

All their answers had gone up in flames.


	14. (I won't let you) Run

The sound….it felt so alive, but with a desperation about it. It was like an echo, reverberating violently through every bone in his body. It was the torrent of fire, the eye of the storm, the hunger of a ferocious animal. A wound…it felt like a wound in the center of his being that had now been stabbed raw. It was a gap. Nothingness. Hell. It was like staring at the face of Death.

And it was a wonder he and Scorpius had not died at the very spot.

They made their arduous journey back to the Weasley household in various stages of fatigue, collapsing wherever they appeared (Albus limp on the kitchen table, Rose sprawled on the stairs, Scorpius drooling on the cold hard floor) and not waking until—well Albus was the only one up. A pain potion and five cigarettes later, he puffed on his sixth cigarette, breaking apart the strange phenomena that had occurred a few hours earlier:

Why hadn't Rose heard it?

He remembered screaming from his earlier memory of the place, when his father went in and told Albus to wait outside—he had always thought it was his father screaming—but the screams had never been _so grueling_. The limited perspective of his four-year old self was faulty at best, riddled with emotions and fears and latent desires. Maybe he just _wanted_ his father to suffer. Maybe his four-year old self had imagined the connection, as part of some Oedipal revenge scheme. But Albus was seventeen now, not four, and his motives had evolved from their hopeless origins. His seventeen-year old self dreamt of confrontations between father and son, in a barren graveyard somewhere, where son would finally show father what he had learned after a lifetime of being dragged through hell. The prospect of a duel was inevitable in his mind. Student turning on teacher. Thoughts of such a dramatic end struck him in equal parts anxiety and excitement; the sensation was overwhelming. All those lessons in facing your fears came down to vanquishing the one man who had always played _his_ fear. The final obstacle: _The ultimate villain was Harry Potter himself._

It…could not be the answer. The fact he could think it meant his father had considered his arrival at the very same conclusion ages ago— it was too simple. His father was cleverer than that, surely, and surely he thought Albus cleverer than that too. For him to devise a scheme that Albus could solve so quickly was nigh on impossible.

No, it was _too convenient._

* * *

"Al."

She stood in the doorway, watching him fumble around in his head. She must've been up for a while—he'd must've heard her downstairs earlier, helping Scorpius. Potion stains on sleeves told him she'd already probably tended to his wounds.

"How are you feeling?"

A strange query: he stared at her, mulling over a suitable response.

"Alive." He said, finally.

"That's good."

"It is."

'Scorpius is too."

A dull blink. "I would expect that."

* * *

Then she was silent, and they were done with conversation for a while. He lounged on the sofa with eyes closed, cigarette hanging from the edge of his mouth, head splayed back deep in thoughts graveyards, duels, and probabilities.

* * *

"Did I kill someone yesterday?"

Rings of smoke wafted in the air.

"Think you saved two lives Rose Pose," he responded with his usual brand of apathy, and she ruffled: there wasn't a smidge of gratitude in his voice.

"Yes, but did I _kill_ someone? Did someone die in that fire because of _me_?"

"It's possible." He made another ring of smoke with his mouth. "But not because of you."

"I'm the one that burned it down."

"You overthink everything."

His annoyed mess of hair lifted. "It wasn't our parents." He told her, plainly.

She looked away for a moment, not wanting him to see how uncomfortable she was that he'd guessed _exactly_ what she'd been thinking.

"We can't be sure."

He sat up with a derisive snort. "Do you really think you're capable of killing the three greatest wizards of their age? Please, you're skill at Fiendfyre is _novice_ at best."

Her face flinched: Albus would hedgehorn an insult in wherever possible.

"You're a complete ass."

"I'm precisely what you need me to be," he said, with a cold stare. "What did you expect – a kiss and cuddle after every bump in the road? Did you think finding our parents would be easy?" An eye-roll. "I have better things to do than hold your hand all day. _That's what Malfoy is for._ "

Her cheeks colored. "Why bring him into this?"

He stretched languidly and stood as if he hadn't heard her question. "See, let's pretend for a moment that I _was_ Malfoy." Lazy strides made their way over to her. "I understand it takes a stretch of imagination but _pretend._ I'd be the wet napkin for you to blow your nose all over, and in turn, we'd get nothing done. And would we get along nearly as well as we do?"

"We don't get along," she said, annoyed.

"That's beside the point."

"Then what _is_ the point?"

"Point is you get lazy if I don't give you a little-" he flicked her forehead with the wand, jolting her backwards and making her eyelids flutter. "- _push_ now and then."

"You call leaving me and Malfoy in a field of apparitions a _little push_? Exactly how does getting your friends nearly massacred fall into fortitude training?"

"You didn't die."

"I _could have_ died."

He took another long drag. "You're focusing on the wrong things."

* * *

He stood directly in front of her now, eyes glazed with their usual condescension.

"Find the anomaly in what happened yesterday. Show me you're not so smitten by Malfoy that you've forgotten how to think."

What he meant was: _impress me_.

"I don't want to play this game today," she spoke wearily.

"Too bad. You're already losing."

A haze of smoke had formed around her.

"Me. You two heard that awful noise and I didn't. What makes me different?"

"Good. Shamefully slow. Almost pathetic, really, but _good_."

She ignored the jibe. "So you already know why."

"I have my theories, as always."

"Go on then."

"Rosie." He gave a disparaging eye-roll. "That's not how we do things. It's still your turn."

"I'll arrive at the same conclusions you did," she said miserably.

"You have a unique perspective of the event. A perspective neither Malfoy nor I can replicate."

"And why's that important?"

A muscle in his jaw twitched, as though he was trying to contain his anger at such a stupid question. She swallowed as he drew closer, the ends of his shoes scraping against hers. "Why it's important," he said, his voice a lethal whisper. "Is that what you want to know? Why is it important that I learn precisely what was seen and heard in that shack?"

She gave an almost imperceptible nod, and he sneered in response, drawing the cigarette from his mouth. "Rose…" Specks of smoke flecked across her face and cheekbones, making her eyes water. "…I've waited _my whole life_ to see what was in that shack."

* * *

He felt, perhaps, that she had taken an experience that belonged solely to him, that he alone was entitled to because of his father. Never mind that she'd also saved his life. No, that part didn't matter.

At such a proximity, fear would transcend magic—manifesting itself into something more _masculine_.

She scanned his features as he towered over her, the tight jaw-line, broad shoulders, curvature of lean muscles. He was no longer the petite boy she had spent a childhood running around with, one she could race and pin and physically counter. More than a dangerous wizard. The young man staring back at her could as easily strangle her with his hands as he could with magic.

No sudden movements were made.

The fingers on her wand-hand twitched.

* * *

Green irises zipped across her form, scrutinizing this display of boldness. "You remember what I told you in the Forest, don't you?" he said, icily. "About choosing your battles carefully."

"I'm not scared of you."

"Are you sure?"

* * *

Without warning he drew closer, his forehead pressing against hers in a way that could easily be mistaken for something that it was not. She held her breath hearing him breathe, wondering if he was using this proximity to scan her mind for that experience she'd presumably stolen from him— how _pragmatic_. They had started learning Legilimency and Occulmency around the same time, and were equally versed in their respective skills (Rose had had to learn Occulmency as part of the Head's instructions; her mind hid the Resurrection Spell, now deemed the most dangerous spell in the Wizarding world. Albus had learned Legilimency for the sheer pleasure of screwing with people).

The Wizard waged intellectual warfare, but the Young Man meant to disgust, startle, torment, challenge, provoke her by any means necessary. He was always looking for ways to get under her skin.

There were a million ways this could end, but she'd be damned if she let him win.

* * *

"You were wrong, you know," she said softly, but also firmly. "In the Forest. You're not the scariest thing in my head. You're not."

"Oh, but I am _in_ your head."

She stared downwards in steely determination, refusing to meet the taunt in his dark stare. _Don't reach for your wand, don't falter, don't let him think he'd gotten to you, don't-_

"I can handle anything you throw at me."

"Anything," he scoffed, then grew silent for a moment, as if actually toying with the idea. "Anything." He repeated after a while, more softly, more to himself than her. "That's an _obscenely_ broad category… almost invitingly broad…what nerve…brilliant..."

At first she couldn't tell if he was mocking or genuinely complimenting her - his arms dropped from her like dead weight, and then he wasn't looking at her anymore. Swiftly he turned, walking over to his stack of spellbooks in the kitchen and immersing himself - hopefully he wasn't looking for a spell to test her statement.

Either way, relief flooded her skin - for today, it seemed that a brutal fight had been avoided.

* * *

Scorpius paced home, cold air shifting in and out his lungs. Hands tucked into the flap of his jumper, he let the sounds of the city wash over him—blaring horns, shifting cars, clamoring people. Anything, anything to drown out the _unholy_ noise stuck in his head:

It was like a…current of pain passing through every cell in his body. The sound of a thousand dying screams; it was as if every living being in the area-from the trees to his best mate to the blades of grass clenched between whitening knuckles-was _screaming_ out in pain.

His last conversation with Rose streamed across his mind. She had taken the fact he had nearly died very seriously and told him he wouldn't be coming with them again—she didn't want him risking his life for _Potter_ —to which he very daringly replied _You think I'm doing it for that twat?_ This did not have the desired effect; her eyes narrowed and she told him very firmly that he shouldn't be risking his life for _anyone_. It's not a game, she said. I don't want to see you get hurt, she said. He spent most of the conversation counting how many times she could passively refuse his advances.

Contrary to Rose's opinion of him, Scorpius was _not_ an idiot. He was well aware that his two friends were breaking Azkaban-worthy rules in their dangerous quest to find their parents. But did he care? Not especially.

 _Near_ -death was a common hazard Scorpius would face in his lifelong partnership with Albus Potter. If anything, and with the exception of the Hogwarts incident, it was testament of his brilliant friend's ability to calculate risks (if not his ability to be a decent human being). Still, they were in it together. Surely that meant something in the scheme of their –could he keep calling it a friendship? He decided he would.

His own parents knew little about Potter, but held very strong opinions on Rose after their disastrous dinner with her. His mum was gentler about it: _you know I like her Scorpy, honest. Well I guess I pity her more. She's in a lot of trouble for someone her age. She's not the one for you, darling, and I mean that in the nicest way possible. You'll find someone else._ His father very bluntly told him he was love-struck fool and to _bleeding get over it._

He had a point.

The fact of the matter was Scorpius _knew_ he had a miniscule chance with Rose. In an ideal world, their biggest obstacle would be their feuding families, but, here, that was a source of levity. That their parents once hated each other was something bond over. No, _here_ , the problem was the Resurrection Magic that put England on Crisis Awareness Watch, the Ministry breathing down her back, the weight of dead parents on her shoulders, a brother too sick to be left alone, and a cousin that had always been a little too close for comfort.

Truth was Scorpius did not know how to help her. She was an _auror_ , practically an adult now and here he was, some scruffy, impulsive kid who had never grown out his school-boy fancy for her.

The world was tilting in an improbable direction.

Going home, Scorpius knew he'd find the Healer training pamphlets sprawled over his bed by his not-so-subtle mother. In an ideal world the son of the wealthiest wizarding family in England would never have to work for a living—but the ministry had ordained that all able-bodied citizens lend themselves to aiding the nation. Deaths stacked high everyday in the papers in skirmishes between wizards. His mum pushed him towards Healing— _A safe career if anything. And you have the OWLs for it, Scorpy_ -and neither parent was willing to entertain the notion of him becoming an _auror_.

Rose had her own twisted brand of family loyalty, but Scorpius was his father's son through and through. He freely rebelled against the man but equally dreaded the thought of letting him down. Or the thought of making his mother cry, and certainly not at a funeral for _him_. Scorpius did not want to die.

In the end all they had was family.

* * *

Contrary to popular opinion, the Head of the Department of Law Enforcement was a fair man, did not bear a secret agenda, and was only _slightly_ egotistical – or so he told anyone that would listen. Example one, he had adopted the world's most dangerous criminal in the hopes of redeeming her and certainly not to exploit her talents for his own benefit. Example two, he allowed her reasonable working hours that certainly did _not_ involve seventeen hour shifts and off-the-books investigations as part of some secret agenda – what more could she want? Especially as it had now come to his attention that she was _skimping_ work.

In all fairness, he allowed her permission to explain – in which for precisely ten minutes she stood around blithering about how she was seventeen and had inherited her parents' home, and been spending an extraordinary amount of time there for _sentimental_ reasons. Ignoring the fact that he had inexplicably missed not one but _two_ of his ward's birthdays, he pointed out that the elves had been helping her sneak back into the house on certain late nights, which was, of course, _another violation of their agreement._

"The law bears witness that I become owner of property when I turn seventeen-"

"Yes, Weasley, but you are _my_ property, and I've been seventeen for a while."

"I'm your ward, sir."

"Yes, yes," he muttered, pulling out a cigar and lighting it. "But my rules supersede any legal technicalities you may feel you deserve with your _age_. You still do what I want _whenever_ I want. It was the terms of our agreement for me saving your sorry ass."

"Of course, sir."

At this point she grew dead silent – she had not anticipated this turn of events – and hung her head in the manner of defeat. It was extracting this expression of complete submission that the Head had intended to do. One may even be so bold as to call it effective parenting.

"However", he continued, with a thoughtful (or perhaps guilty) expression, "It has to my attention that two of your birthdays have passed and I have not acquired a present that is suitable in the context of our, well, what one may consider _guardian-child_ relationship…"

Her eyes grew large.

"…in which case, I grant you permission to have your parent's house for your perusual, so long as you remain in the bounds of _my_ rules. That means you still report to me when I say. And you will _not_ skimp work."

The girt stared at him, dumbfounded by this otherworldly gesture of kindness. But it was not as strange as it was intuitive. She was no longer the urchin he had scraped off the walls of Wizengamot. Having absorbed his teachings and training, she had become a capable auror and an _excellent_ witch – a point he did not wish to make aware to her.

Now having the means, she had more often than not thought about taking her brother and running away. He also presumed she was hiding a boyfriend at that _sentimental_ house of hers and sleeping with at least two of her coworkers (the Bulgarian struck him as shady). Even so, the Head did not care as much about her adolescent fantasies as he did in keeping her within his influence. She was an asset, and he did not plan to do away with the girl any more than he did his agenda to one day become Minister.

"Do you understand what I have said to you, Weasley?"

"I-yes, sir."

"Excellent." Deftly ignoring the _almost_ -smile on her face, the Head opened a drawer and removed a file. "Now onto another matter. I have chosen you to lead your squad's next run."

"Me?" Her face plunged and the Head asked very edgily if he had stuttered.

"No, sir. But, I mean-shouldn't it be left up to some of the older aurors?"

"Age is a number. Do you think yourself incapable, Weasley?"

"Yes, sir-I mean no I don't. Thanks to y-you, _sir_."

He studied the girl sitting across from him more closely for a moment. This, this was the girl of whom half the Wizarding World was scared shitless. She was not much to look at, with dirt-colored eyes and small size and predictable features; a waif of something he'd scraped from the bottom of his shoe. She had no sense of responsibility—much less anything else to recommend her for a position of leadership. She was unpatriotic, under involved, and _deceitful_. Magic may have been her only redeeming quality and would be her saving grace. He did not tell her that China and Germany had issued bounties on her head, deeming her too dangerous to live—unnecessary worry would distract her from the task at hand. She was good but she had to be better if she intended to survive the emerging dark world and become the weapon England needed her to be—when _he_ became Minister.

* * *

A shattering bright light—spell—knocked her out of the tree and she fell to the boy's feet with a painful thud, morphing from crow to human. A painful transformation for any animagi, especially when it was involuntary. She gaped at him.

"How you-"

"How'd I know?" He prompted, mouth lolling with a smirk. "The distinction between a real crow and an animagi is facile. First, irregular flight patterns. Second, lack of bird call. Third, and maybe your biggest mistake was tailing me eight straight blocks thinking I wouldn't notice. _Did you really think I would be such an idiot?_ "

She stared at him, absolutely stunned for a moment, by his sheer nerve, by his manner of speaking, by _everything_. He was not perturbed that she'd been following him, no, he was amused. Her eyes traveled across the scope of his tall, arrogant demeanor, up to the flashing green eyes. She had never quite seen anything like him.

"My, my. They said you were ruthless, but they didn't tell me you were so _sexy_."

He lifted his chin a little.

"Who are you?"

"An enthusiast, darling, of your…. _talents_ ," she purred, cheek against pavement. "You've raised the eyebrows of a certain type of people."

"Graham Paisley," he said, unblinkingly.

"Ahh, you know the name, do you? Well he's aching to learn yours." She gave him a sly look. "Come to think of it, so am I."

Not taking the hint, he returned a dull look.

"Your reputation precedes you, darling. That little trick you do with the Cruciatis – he wants to know how it works. You've impressed him. And what's more, you've _smitten_ him."

"Not interested."

"He's not the type that takes rejection well."

"Not. Interested." His eyes flashed with anger – but the surge was quickly discarded. In place a vague sneer formed on his lips, and when he looked at her, she could only marvel at the perfectly dull look in the eyes only to be offset by their electrifying green color.

"Tell your boss I'm not the sort of enemy he wants to make."

The statement made a jolt in her stomach.

There, there was a pause in which the sound that could be heard was of his approaching footsteps, shoes _click-clacking_ against pavement towards her. When he stood directly in front of her, she felt a little breathless.

"Where do I find him?" He said impatiently.

"I'll tell you for a kiss."

She was not quite sure what had compelled her to blurt such a thing; she was usually more tactful when it came to flirting, especially with her boss's targets. But there was something _about_ him…for a moment she thought he would consider the trade, but then one foot lifted and landed on the soft form of her arm…and _pressed_. She drew a sharp breath, pain sending excited tingles through her body.

"You'll tell me because I ask you, _darling_ ," A cold laugh. "If you know so much about me, then you know what I'm capable of. Now—"He twisted his ankle further down, and feeling loosened from her fingers. "-where do I find him?"

"You… can't find him, not unless… he wants you to."

Contempt crossed his face. "So you don't actually know."

"…no…"

He could sense it was not a lie, and so he offed her- a flood of sensation returned to her arm - pacing away, hands irritably stuffed in pockets.

He was done.

"Hey, _wait_."

He stopped and turned around, looking bored. In a single sudden moment, she morphed into a crow and fluttered off the ground. She reappeared in front of him as the beautiful woman she was, eyes glittering with excitement. Her former fear was gone, discarded, and she slinked toward him in as seductive a manner as possible. "I can see why he's smitten for you, you know," she murmured, "I think I'd like to wear you tonight."

The dark brows rose, not having expected such a bold remark. She began tracing a thumb down his temple and down to his jawline, and the expression in his eyes morphed into something unreadable. And then, suddenly, there was a flicker of _something_ on his face, a realization of sorts. Her breath caught when he began leaning in as well; he was so handsome, so very _tantalizing_. His gaze was scorching. And those _eyes_ – they tore through your flesh and bone and swallowed your soul.

He stopped inches from her face; the lips curved to a sly smile, indulging in an inside joke.

"I can't believe it - he's having me _seduced_."

The expression once more gleaned into something cold.

"Tell your boss-" A lazy flick of the wand sent her staggering backwards "-just because I've impressed him doesn't mean he's impressed _me_."

* * *

The mission was simple—or it should have been.

Scout the near part of Camden for a terror cell: another attack on the ministry was in the works, but the meeting was buried in the midst of muggles.

They flew to Camden, she and her unit: Aurors Mendoza (Cynthia), Gachevska (Kovy), Dubois (Florian), and Hashimoto. Rose tried to concentrate on her own formation rather than the unit leaders around her. Auror Bernard, to her right, large, broad-shoulder, black hair slicked, and unabashedly cocky, tried to coax her into something of a race, but she followed in league with the older aurors and kept control on her formation. She was the youngest unit leader, yes, and that won her many funny looks. Looks of resentment, expectation, and the ever-prominent _fear_ ; some still thought she belonged in prison.

"Doing ok, Rose?" Kovy had gotten out of formation and flown up beside her. He smiled at her his friendly

Bulgarian smile. His eyes followed hers to the staring, and the thick eyebrows set. "Ignore them. They're judgmental tools with heads up their arseholes."

She only nodded.

"Just remember you outrank them now. No one messes with a unit leader, especially one that makes badass spells in her spare time. We call you _Queen of Death_ in my country for a reason. If you were ever to visit, they'd throw flowers at your feet."

She flinched but nodded all the same.

"You're going to do fine."

She made herself smile.

"And you look very nice today."

She actually chuckled.

"Inappropriate conduct, Gachevska. Back into formation."

"See, _that's_ more like it." He grinned and leaned in conspiratorially. "Now if you want to yell to prove a point in front of the others, I'm your guy. I can fake tears too, you know."

 _"Back into formation, Gachevska."_

"Alright I can take a hint." Another grin as he flew away.

Rose knew why the Head had assigned her to a unit with all transfers: she had acquired a certain level of infamy among her British colleagues, one that predisposed her to all sorts of backlash. So maybe this was a way of starting over. Being assigned to a unit required her to socialize—atleast be able communicate on a level more than awkward mumbling and _yes sirs_. Being assigned to _lead_ a unit meant she was responsible for four more lives than she wanted to be.

"Pan right!" she called to her unit. "Clouds in the distance!"

" _Qui, Capitaine_ ," Florian bellowed, blond hair flowing in the wind.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Cynthia puffed beside him. "I hate flying."

"Oi, Mendoza, that bloke from unit five was smiling at you," Kovy teased.

"Really?"

"Nah."

Everything laughed at this except Mr. Hashimoto, who Rose knew preferred action to socializing. Once, during a late shift when it was just the two of them, Rose had attempted conversation:

 _"Mr. Hashimoto, why did you come to England?"_

 _When he spoke, it was in the most eloquent english Rose had ever heard:_

 _"I do what my country requires of me, Ms. Weasley."_

 _"What does Japan want with England?" She blanched. "I didn't even know Japan and England were that great of allies."_

 _"You mistake the affairs of the muggle world with the magical ones," he explained. "True, we were on opposite ends of the last world war, but the International Confederation of Wizards binds us irrevocably to your cause. What's more, England is the intermediary of Japan's endeavors into the rest of the western magical world. So you see, Ms. Weasley, our interests are intertwined with yours. Our wands are in line with yours, for our fates are as one."_

 _Rose remembered Kovy once saying that England was the magical hub of the world._

* * *

That the world was set in a chain of dominos made the travesty about to occur in England even more devastating.

* * *

After landing, near a hundred Aurors stood in a large semi-circle around the Head. He spoke in his normal _no-nonsense_ nonsensical tone, riddled with threats and inanities, horrifying the new recruits and amusing the old ones:

"I presume you've all read the files so I won't insult your intelligence going over safety protocol, but I _will_ mention two things. First, we'll be in the presence of muggles, so I don't want the Department of Maintaining Wizarding Secrecy on myarseabout improper conduct. _Do not make it known that you are there._ Understood?"

There were several nods.

"Second, I want to keep the death toll number zero today. Make swift arrests and avoid fighting. If you _do_ fight, avoid failing, because Ms. Weasley _won't_ be bringing you back to life. She's busy today."

There were a few nervous chuckles at this and the girl tried not to meet anyone's gaze.

Then, wizards discarded their robes and immersed into civilian streets, rubbing shoulders with muggles left and right. After the incident in Diagon Alley, any sort of crowd made Rose nervous – so her unit trailed back alleys, remote areas, etc.

Rose remembered precisely the date, time, and place when it all went wrong – when they glanced into the skies and saw balls of light manifesting in thin air.

"Wha- what's _that_?"

Magic - unlike anything they'd ever seen before.

* * *

It had been a ruse, and in the end they could do nothing to stop it. _How_ it happened – no one could really explain it. Whether the terror cell was using invisibility spells or not wasn't important. Rather, it was the scope of it, how magic seemed to manifest itself into the size of _tires_ and storm into the city like hail, burning tops of shops and buildings. Shield charms were out of the question. Doing _anything_ was out of the question.

Aurors stood in lines outside the area, watching – fire-like bombs setting streets aflame. Gripping their wands. Holding each other back by the robes. Tears stained the cheeks of every human being there – even the Head wiped his brow on his sleeve. Allergies, he claimed.

"GET OUT OF THE WAY!" screeched an auror with copper hair, one who was crying harder than the others, and two surrounding aurors gripped him by the arms. "Lemme go – I have _family_ in there!"

"You can't save them," the Head said sternly, and Rose felt her stomach plummet. "It's a violation of the International Stat-"

"Damn the Statute of Secrecy!" shouted someone from the back.

There were cries of agreement.

One of the older female aurors looked at the Head: "Listen to your men, Vincent. Muggles are _dying_ in there-"

"We cannot Obliviate an entire city," the Head snapped, though even he looked troubled by his decision. "We'll be noticed no matter what we do."

"What if we tell them it's government technology?" Florian suggested, quietly.

Outraged clamoring rose in response:

"-like they'd ever believe that-"

"-Merlin, this is going to be in the news _everywhere_ -"

"-I read about nanotechnology-"

"-where the _hell_ is the British military!?"

"-and what are they going to do? You can't stop magic with muggle weapons-"

"- _thousands_ of people-"

"Stop panicking," Mr. Hashimoto said, calmly, "The Ministers are conversing as we speak. They'll have a decision within an hour about the best course of action."

Cynthia paled. "Now I'm really going to be sick."

Kovy, who was standing beside Rose, swallowed: "So we just wait - isn't there _something_ we can do?"

The Head nodded. "We find the wizards responsible for this."

A chill went through the air.

Someone piped up: "Who in their right mind attacks _muggles_? They're after the ministry – why not go straight there?"

The Head stood in front of his men, his long scarred face illuminated in the sinking sun.

"Do you see what is happening?" he roared at them. "This is a _intimidation_ tactic. Our enemies are showing us what they're capable of. And it will only get worse from here. No one thought we'd see the day dark wizards would use muggles to break the Ministry. To break England. These…. _monsters_ won't stop until they've destroyed the fragile peace between our world and the theirs. _But it only works if we give in_.

"In the upcoming years, you will encounter the worst of sorcery you could imagine. You will have the most grueling, toughest job of your peers. You will have to _choose_." His steely gaze passed over their perplexed faces, lingering on Rose. "You can choose to fight with the Ministry or you can be a coward. It's not about the politics of it. It's about you – is this the world you want to live in? Is this the world you want your children to see? An animalistic world where wizards kill muggles in order to destroy other wizards, and for what? For control?"

There was a resounding _no_.

* * *

The decision came an hour later:

The Ministers refused to risk the Statute of Secrecy.

Sixty thousand deaths. One hundred thousand casualties.

All muggle.

* * *

"It is a day I have never stopped thinking about, Mr. Walker. It is a day that I can never forget."

"One of many," I presumed. The 2023 Bombing of Camden was not even listed in most history books. We were still years away from the beginning of the real war, one that would claim the lives of _millions_.

"Was secrecy worth letting your fellow men die?"

Her wrinkled mouth twitched. "I could never justify the inhumanity of it, Mr. Walker, but it was never my decision."

"You don't feel responsible for setting history on its course? The unrest you created in society with your Resurrection Spell?" I pried. "Or do you feel war was always inevitable?"

"The name came from somewhere."

"Indeed it did."

The old woman gave me a strange look. "Do you hold me personally accountable for the Inevitable War? Is your perception of history really so narrow?"

I was bewildered by her rudeness for a second. "Erm…no," I said, not sure which question I was answering. "I don't, Rose."

"And why is that?"

"I don't know the whole story."

"You don't." She nodded. "But the bombings marked the beginning of a new era, Mr. Walker. An era where we began to see ourselves as wizards first and human beings second. You see the war was never about wands and weapons; it was the clash of two ideologies struggling to coexist. Man has _always_ struggled to coexist. It's the acceptance of this conflict, the embracing of it perhaps, that allows us to prosper and grow. So you see, Mr. Walker, war is not the problem; it is merely the solution."

"Then what _was_ the problem?"

Rose gave me her enigmatic smile.

* * *

Albus Potter stared at the swirling fire in the bruised sky, his breath catching in his chest. Bombs fell in eyes glazed in equal parts fascination and horror.

A paper floated way with the wind in his direction, landing in a far too unlikely coincidence beside his feet, carrying the emblem of a crow.

 _Have we impressed you yet?_

* * *

Specks of light grew brighter in the burnt indigo sky as the last remnant of light bled out of the air was heavy tonight punctured by the sounds of bombs and screams, and somehow, it was all anyone could think about.

She watched him stare out to the expanse of street lights, wand gripped tightly in his hand. The very sight made her nervous.

"Come inside, Al."

He didn't turn around, or make any indication that he had heard her.

"Come inside," She insisted, again, grasping his hand from behind. "Are you hungry – can I get you something?"

"Let go, Rose."

"I can't."

"Yes you can," he said, voice monotonous. "I chose now so I could slip away without this pointless interlude. Go inside and pretend to be asleep again."

"Where will you go?"

"That's of no concern to you."

Her grip hardened as he tried to yank his hand away. "Tell me something," she began, quietly. "When Ginny made you leave, did you try to stop her? Did you even try?"

His entire body stiffened from behind.

"What does that have-"

"Answer the question."

Then he was silent again, a moment passing in thought.

"No. I didn't," came the quiet, restrained voice. "She's always been blind to me."

"Then you should've made her see."

Albus moved so quickly she almost didn't see him. His wand lashed through the air, and she slammed into the front door, her head hitting the handle. He stormed up the porch steps to her as she leapt to her feet.

Their voices overlapped as they rose.

"You have _no_ right to speak about –"

"You should've wept! You should've begged for her to forgive you. She would have - _she's your mum for god's sake._ "

"She's never been anything of the sort-"

"You should've shown her that you love her!" Rose snapped, her fists balled. Her head throbbed from hitting the door so hard, but she was too angry to feel disoriented.

He gave her a bitter grimace. "I don't remember bringing love into this."

"Stop it."

" _You_ stop it."

"She hurt you, didn't she?" she said, as his wand found its way to her throat, poking against the hollow. "That's what this is about. And you can't even face it—that's why you ran away. That's why you keep running."

Silence.

"You didn't fight, Al," she said finally, frustrated. "You have to fight for the people you care about. Even if all they do is give you pain."

"You know nothing about pain."

"Come inside."

His eyes flashed. "No."

She flinched, her chin in the air as he trailed the wand up her neck – like it was a knife and he was fantasizing about tearing her in half. He wanted to punish her, she knew that. Teach her a lesson for bringing up the painful image of his _mother_. Maybe she was the closest thing the he saw to the woman – but the similarities ended at the hair and freckles. Rose was not Ginny. She would not let him walk away from her so easily.

"I won't let you run away because you're scared, just so you don't have to face the fact that, _yes Albus_ , there are people in the world that you-"

"That I what?" he demanded, a childish twinge seeping through his harsh voice. Aiming a hex at her, he threw it at the window instead, shattering glass everywhere around them. Then he threw his hands in his hair, spinning around in a very-human frustration. "Merlin, you're the most _impossible_ -" He stopped short and kicked the wall in muted rage, perhaps wishing it was her. He held more anger than he knew what to do with.

Almost as abruptly as the breakdown, sense returned and his head snapped back toward her. His eyes were _burning_.

"Don't. Push. Me," he hissed, mouth curling to form each word slowly.

Rose met his vicious glare and held it.

"I told you I can handle you."

His shoulders descended, as though her words had crushed something inside him. Like he had just given up. He trailed away from her and collapsed onto the bench on the porch, folding his head in his hands.

Rose watched him with a confused curiosity, too afraid, for a moment, to move from the spot he'd left her in. Afraid that anything sudden or drastic might jolt him back into rage. But then quietly, she began moving towards him. She never could stay away for so long. He paid her no heed as she plopped down beside him, until at last she spoke his name:

"Al."

He glanced at her, looking almost-endearingly exhausted.

That was when Rose made the first move - trapping him in a hug. He didn't push her away, instead squirmed uncomfortably in her arms, and for a moment it was like he was seven, not seventeen. Taking advantage of this rare form of defeat, she dragged him inside and made him sandwiches and hot chocolate. He ate in stubborn silence, refusing to make eye-contact. She held him again and this time felt him sink into her – finally he was too drained to fight - his messy head of hair falling limp against her neck. She rubbed his back hoping to lull him to sleep, or at least get him to relax. He was always so tense, so furious - such a rigid boy to hold. To show affection to. But Rose had to try, didn't she?

They needed each other more than ever as England fell around them. And where would he go anyway? He was a complete fucking kid. All he knew was how to hurt and get hurt.

In the end all they had was family.

* * *

Listening to the mechanical swishing of the fan, his chest rose and fell restlessly. Cigarette smoke floated up to the ceiling and he rubbed his bleary eyes with his free arm. Rose was resting on his other arm, legs curled, face buried into his side, clinging to him with the fervor of a child - worried he'd try to leave again if she left him alone.

"Al."

He didn't reply but his breathing sharpened, answer enough that he was awake.

"I've been thinking about what you said – the noise. I think I know why I couldn't hear it." she whispered to him. "You said it sounded like Death, or dying, didn't it?"

His body stiffened. "Yeah, that's what it felt like."

"Well I've _seen_ Death, when I - you know – when I brought Hugo back. So maybe that did something to me? Maybe I'm desensitized to it, or something."

"Maybe." A pause as he blew puffs of smoke. "We don't know what the noise means."

"The fact it can kill you just by hearing it – it can't mean anything good. It's almost like a weapon."

"Weapon." His voice softened, mulling it over, followed by a yawn. "I'll tell you what I think tomorrow."

Disappointment stung Rose - she wanted to keep talking to him. She liked the sound of his voice in the rare moments he wasn't taunting her or working some subversive powerplay. Like they were friends. And it hurt. It hurt knowing that only such grand-scale destruction of England could bring them together. When nightmares ranged from burning children to dead parents to carnivorous apparitions, it was impossible to get any decent sleep, alone.

She buried her face into his shirt. "It's been a while since we've napped together," she breathed. "Twelve years I think…god you're soft."

"Go to sleep, Rose," he said, his tone turning snappish.

"And warm."

"I'm pushing you off."

"Sorry, _sorry!"_

The ends of her mouth curved up against his shirt's fabric, and she heard him blow out his cigarette and toss it in the bin. He charmed off the lamp behind her. Then, kicking his shoes off, he shifted uneasily in the bed. She knew that he was calculating what to do about her.

Expecting a cold shove away, she was startled when another arm came to wrap around her. A kiss pressed onto her forehead, and he closed her in a strange but silent embrace; it was forceful, almost grumpy, but _attached_. He held her the way one holds a stubborn child, or a little sister that simply would _not_ go away. Even the _go to sleep, Rose_ held a twinge of brotherly authority, along with his usual insolence. For once, they were as they should've been. She listened to his breathing slow, and heard the beating of his chest fade against her eardrum.

She hoped for a heart underneath it all.


	15. Fear

With whiskey goblet in hand, the Head sat in his study, watching the flickering wireless. The blurry screen captured a historic moment in wizardry – leaders from all over the globe conversing in a large, ornate chamber, England's own Kingsley Shacklebolt sitting at the center, being questioned about the attack on Camden.

"Magic fashioned in the way of muggle weapons…and used on muggles no less! Surely their authorities are suspicious, are they not?" asked the Italian minister.

"I've talked things over with their minister," Kingsley responded. "He'll do his best on his end to dispel the tension."

There were other murmurs in the conference.

"…England is in a worse state than we thought…"

"…The Statue of Secrecy cannot be played with in this way…"

"…bombs made of magic…what kind of sorcery is this?"

 _"What if it spreads to my country?"_

"What precautionary measures is England taking to contain this threat?" the Nepalese representative asked.

"And what does English Ministry of Magic intend to do about Resurrection magic?" the German chancellor demanded loudly, seated way behind, over the sea of clamoring. "You _must_ put an end to it."

The Head watched Kingsley, as honorably as he knew the man to be, state that England was doing all it could. The man was a relic of the Great War and had once been in the very spot the Head was, but now it was clear that age had caught up to him. He was _incapable_ , the Head thought, of defending his country anymore. He was too diplomatic, too compliant, and _blind_ to the fact that England's biggest problem may just have been its greatest weapon. It didn't matter that Rose Weasley had brought back the dead, only that she and _she alone_ could do it. Countries like Germany were beginning to see that.

All of a sudden the Chinese representative stood up, quite angrily:

"Rose Weasley possesses knowledge that disrupts the sanctity of life. She is a threat unto humanity itself. China will not allow this madness to escalate. Before things spread to our side of the hemisphere, the girl must be put to _death_."

 _You'll have to go through me first_ , the Head glared at the screen. His influence prevented the British Ministry from imprisoning Rose. His occupation made sure she was given proper training for her survival. Lastly, his guardianship ensured she belonged to him and him solely. Not his superiors. Certainly not _Kingsley_. No, there was no question of loyalty. He held her life in one hand and her brother's in the other, and there was nothing she _wouldn't_ do for the precious little cripple.

Unlike his ward, the Head was _not_ especially gifted in sorcery – but his experience and nerves of steel more than made up for it. He had worked hard to get where he was now. To think that a half-blood with his pathetic means could rise to second in command of the _entire_ magical nation. He had learned to play the political game well and maybe lost his soul in the process. It was a necessary trade. It was still early. No game of chess was won without sacrifice, without strategy, and while old and world-weary men in the flashing screen bickered about the present, the Head would plan _their future_.

Rose Weasley. A prodigy without any special aspirations – she was different from him in a way that she held no experience, but the sheer magical aptitude to transcend it. She learned fast and held high tolerance for his brutality. The Head had broken many talented men before, but he had not quite seen someone – a _girl_ no less – who conformed so effortlessly to what he wanted. Who bent without breaking. That she had not yet gone mad was testament of her fortitude, and a secret point of pride for her guardian.

She was his Pawn, his Knight, and finally his Queen – he would help her aim that wand in a specific direction, when the time came.

It was not yet his turn.

* * *

Somewhere in France, half-past two am, Ginny still had not returned home. Lily stayed upstairs, away from the noisy antics of her older brother and his most-recent girlfriend in the living room. After the end of said antics, she allowed herself to saunter downstairs and sneak a peek; James sat watching the telly intently, half-naked Marie sleeping in the crook of his arm. His expression held more shock than the day their mum had burst through the door, drunk, and collapsed on the floor.

Rather than exchanging words he gestured Lily in quietly, turning up the wireless.

"…on August twenty-fifth, the nation of England will be forcibly placed under a blockade. No wizards will be allowed to enter or leave by means of floo, intercontinental portkey …"

Lily's eyes widened as she finally understood her brother's distressed look. England was their broken home but the only home they knew, and they thought about it more than they should've. And the fact their dinner table was always set for four people had nothing to do with James's recent girlfriend.

August twenty-fifth…..three months before the world cut England off. For God knew how long.

"Should I Owl Teddy?" Lily asked her brother, who was coaxing Marie off his arm and buttoning up his shirt.

"No," he said, frowning. "I'm going alone."

"James, _don't._ Teddy's an auror – he could go through the ministry and get information about where-"

"Oh please." James ruffled his hair, crossly. He wasn't an auror like the older boy or his deceased father, but he liked to think he was more than capable of finding his bratty little brother. He had a decent job in the French Department of Magical Foreign Affairs and decent experience in navigating political protocol, sweet-talking important figures. He worked hard, all the while lapping up the attention and reputation that came with being The Chosen One's son. He thought about Albus too often to admit, even if they'd never _acted_ like brothers. There was literally an ocean's worth of differences between them.

But James figured he had time to cross it.

* * *

Warping through space, her knees landed on hard grassy earth. She was not as disoriented this time. Two weeks had passed since their last transportation – a precautionary interval for her period to cease. Albus refused to take her along if she was going to jeopardize their mission again with _her female problems_ , never mind that it been _his_ fault for not telling her of the side-effects.

"Where are we?" she panted, leaning on wobbly legs.

"Good question."

Albus sat on his knees, head tilted, lips twitching, eyes zipping past each surrounding detail so intently that it was a wonder he even noticed her in the first place.

"So you know."

For a split second, his green irises flitted upwards toward her.

"Yes." And then, not leaving room for further questions, he grabbed her by the wrist and began dragging her. "Don't slow me down today."

Albus was difficult to keep to keep up with. He navigated through the vines and trees and growths with effortless fluency, not caring how many times she staggered and tripped in his path. He didn't answer her questions, claimed it would all make sense when it did. Several hours later, she pulled her arm from his grip and stopped, complaining for a break. He shot her an impatient scowl, but waited nonetheless, hands shoved into pockets.

Since the night she'd stopped him from leaving, Albus had become to a degree, complacent. He was still Albus – strong-willed, temperamental, and rude - but it seemed like he was trying to get along. Rose had decided to meet him halfway.

"Ready _now_?"

Ignoring the exasperation in his voice, she nodded and gripped his hand again, interlacing their fingers. As they moved, she waited for him to finally start explaining – it was clear he was scouting the area. All she knew was that the potion took them to locations of her uncle's past, but in reverse order. So, this was the second-to-last place Harry had used his wand – what was the significance of that?

Eyes spanned dead grass lined with symmetrical rows of slabs of stone, some as large as them. They went as far as eyes could see, distorting into a haze of grey as horizon approached.

"It looks like a graveyard," she murmured.

"It does, doesn't it?"

"But it's not."

He turned towards her, the corners of his mouth twitching.

"What?" she demanded.

"Nothing, go on."

"Well," she began, thinking. "It doesn't have the chemical and fetid rotting smell and the tombstones don't look nearly as old as the dates listed on them. So I think someone went to a great deal of trouble to make this place _look_ like a graveyard."

"Someone certainly did."

She threw him a skeptical look. "Your turn."

"I'm only admiring your deductions Rose Pose."

 _"So I'm wrong?"_

"I didn't say that. Thought it, perhaps."

"Twat," she muttered. _Admiring, bah._

"This place _is_ a graveyard," Albus said, dryly. "It's a place for the dead. It's a place designed _specifically_ for the death of fears. My father-" He paused, reconsidering his next choice of words "- let's say he brought me here many times. You are familiar with what a boggart is, aren't you?"

Rose wasn't following. "Why would Uncle Harry bring you here?"

He cast her an exasperated look. "It's a _training_ ground, Rose."

"Wait - your dad trained you in graveyards?" This was new information for her.

But Albus didn't answer, his attention taken by something in the distance.

"No more questions. Wand out. Now."

Her face contorted. "If it's just a boggart-"

"Of course it's not _just a boggart_. That would be child's play," he hissed, his attention still away. They were moving again, more carefully than quickly. From somewhere behind Rose heard the echo of a familiar strangled voice. Her eyes widened, feet coming to a halt. Albus turned around, ready to look annoyed with her.

"I just heard Hugo," she said shakily.

His expression flared. "Not possible."

"I know what I-"

"No." He shook his head, thinking something over. "I mean _you_ shouldn't be hearing – this place isn't attuned for _your_ – No, I mean, it's only for—" He stopped mid-sentence, a realization hitting him.

"Not possible," he breathed.

"What, _what_?"

She wanted to shake him; he wasn't making any sense.

"We need to move fast," he said tersely. "We need to leave."

He was dragging her again.

"Albus, if Hugo's somehow-"

He turned and grabbed her shoulders, a mad look on his face. "Rose, what you heard was _not_ your brother. It's a-" He paused. "I'm not sure what to call it. It's _like_ a boggart, except more tangible, more dangerous, more alive." Another pause. "There are….techniques in magic that allow wizards to create physical manifestations of one's fears."

"I don't understand."

"Rose, _think_. If you just heard Hugo, what could your biggest fear be?"

Her biggest- _oh dear_.

* * *

"Rosie?" rang a childish voice from behind.

There stood her little brother, pale, feeble, clad in a hospital robe that was clearly too big for him. He looked up at her with watery blue eyes, mouth curving to a relieved smile. "Did you come to save me?"

Instinctively she started towards him, but Albus yanked her backwards. "That's not your brother," he growled, jaw clenched. "Look at him, _more closely_."

And when he stepped forward, Rose saw him – _it_ \- in a different slant of light. The eyes suddenly became dark, hollow, and color waned from his features. He looked like something out a black-and-white picture.

"Rosie," A small smile played on his lips, almost teasing. "What's the matter? Did I do something wrong?"

Rose gasped as her brother suddenly staggered forward, collapsing on his knees. "I can't walk, Rosie. Why can't I walk?" He— _it_ began crawling towards her, eyes looking up in a plea as they turned watery blue again. "It hurts, Rosie. It's hurts so much." She trembled at the pain in his voice, because it _had_ happened before. Just as she started towards him, Albus jolted her backwards, forcefully. "What did I say?" he hissed. " _That's not your brother._ "

She felt dizzy from tears. "I-"

The image gave her a desperate look and opened its mouth to speak.

Blood came _pouring out_ like a fountain.

 _No no no no…_

Albus was nearly wrestling her back now. He flung her back on her bum. "Close your eyes." He ordered, not looking back at her. He rolled up his sleeves. Her heart sank as he drew his wand, moving towards the bleeding image with a sort of caution one reserved for tricky prey. Hugo's small face crumpled, eyes looking at her with equal parts dread and expectation.

"Rosie, what's going on?"

"Please," she heard herself croak, tears falling from her jaw. "Please don't-"

"Are your eyes closed?" Albus demanded, not listening to her. "Close them _now_."

Fighting every cell in her body, she squeezed her eyelids shut: it was necessary. Her only solace was knowing her _real_ brother was alive elsewhere, not having to see what she was having to see.

A sharp sound cracked through the air and something broke inside her; she did not open her eyes. She heard footsteps retract. A hand gripped her arm, startling her as it pulled her up.

"Keep your eyes closed and follow me."

She was too scared to ask what he had done.

* * *

This place, like the last, was an unnatural manifestation of magic – a training ground. A graveyard in which fears came alive and had to be put down. It was more difficult than a _riddikulus_ charm – the fears turned to real entities and had to be dealt with accordingly. His father had brought him here repeatedly, for fears changed with age – it was training to become, in theory, _completely fearless_. Fear was an illusion, after all, a psychological impediment to mastering new and daring forms of magic. To progress.

Still, there were mishaps, more when he was younger. The times he could _not_ face his demons, Harry would step in and rescue him. There was never a situation where Albus was without his father in the graveyard.

Except now.

It took Rose several hours to calm herself down, and conversation between them did not occur. It was not necessary. They both knew precisely what her fear was, and Albus had never been the consoling sort. They kept moving. She figured he was using the action to trace his memory, figure out their path as he done in the Forest.

From the corner of her eyes, Rose saw a figure following them, and wandered how long it had been going on. It was unlike Albus to miss such an obvious thing. It darted between tombstones, slowly narrowing towards them, and almost abruptly Albus switched to an opposite direction - he was dragging her so hard she was sure he'd rip her arm out of its socket. Rose deciphered this: if she'd already faced _her_ fear, that meant-

The figure flashed past them disappearing into rows of tombstones, and Rose could only discern a flash of red.

"Al."

He didn't answer, instead steered them backwards.

"If I faced mine, then maybe you could-"

"You didn't face your fear, _I_ faced your fear," he hissed at her. "Trust me when I say you don't want to face mine."

"Why not?"

He gave her an absurd look.

She tried to reason. "Maybe it's better to get it over with. You said they're not real-"

"That doesn't mean they can't kill us."

Rose was taken aback. Her cousin was never rattled enough to acknowledge his own mortality. What, or rather, _who_ could possibly be his fear to elicit such a reaction – was it his father?

"Oh _Albie?_ "

A whimsical voice rang from behind them. It sounded nothing like Harry, but it _did_ sound like someone she knew.

"I'm talking to _you_ , Albie."

She watched his shoulders tensed, his grip tightening around her hand as they kept walking. It was now clear who it was, though she couldn't believe it. She snuck a look behind them:

The older, taller, handsomer _version of Albus_ stood smirking at them, wand in hand, black eyes dead.

* * *

A flash of light shot over their heads —wall of fire erupted in front of them— blockading their way.

"Playing hide-and-seek?"

Wands drawn, they spun around.

It was like staring at Albus' future self; the Other was taller, broader, and if possible, _more_ defined in features. And worse, there was something unrestrained in his Cheshire-cat smile, the kind that brought an ugly feeling in her stomach

The doppelganger strolled over to them in an Albus-like way, fire shadowing all the right spaces on his handsome face. The effect was lazily twirled his wand as he approached, shooting sparks to the ground.

"If I didn't know better, Albie. I'd say you were _avoiding_ me."

"I don't need to," her cousin sneered in response.

The Other's dead black eyes lit up. Glazing over Rose, he stopped directly in front of the daring boy. Albus didn't step back, jaw clenched. It was the strangest sight – the two Albuses staring each other down, their postures in perfect symmetry.

The doppelganger grew bored first and broke the trance. His fierce attention snapped to Rose.

"And look, ickle Albie brought our favorite plaything with him."

She recoiled as he stepped toward her, capturing her wrists into smooth palms. He shot Albus a sly look.

"Hmm, I suppose they really are quite small… guess you were right. Want to see how long they take to snap?"

"We don't have time for games."

"Oh Albie, that doesn't sound like _you_ at all."

Albus squeezed between them like a wall, severing her wrists from the Other's grip with his wand. Rose could see something strange occurring between the counterparts, their wands held in identical places, gazes transfixed on each other – neither was making the first move. Maybe they knew they were too evenly matched?

Albus didn't play games he couldn't win.

The doppelganger once again grew bored, shoving past Albus to her with unnatural strength. The boy nearly staggered. Maybe they weren't so evenly matched at all. But why was Albus' fear coming after her?

"Albie can be _so_ boring," the doppelganger sighed, pinching the rigid boy's cheek endearingly. "He's fun when he's mad, don't get me wrong. But I slap him, poke him, tickle him…Nothing. See? It's so _hard_ to get under his skin. Now you, Rosie Posie…"

Icy fingers brushed her face and she flinched on instinct.

He threw a nasty smirk at Albus, whose fists had curled into balls.

"I suppose that's _one_ way to do it."

Shit.

* * *

Rose made a wild dash, her knees rattling, caught in a game of cat-and-mouse with something _not-human_.

She knew her cousin's angry, violent side well – preferred it to _this._ They were always wildly bouncing between two extremes, but she knew she could exhaust him into stopping and pull him out of the mania. But that applied only to the _real_ Albus, the Albus that grew frustrated and tired and took anger out on her because she was the only one around. Who squirmed like a petulant child in her arms.

His nightmarish counterpart did not bear even a semblance of humanity.

A laugh resonated from somewhere and Rose spun in frantic circles for the source. Her wand, it was hexed out of her hand before she could even make sense of what was happening. Her body flew through the air hitting the back of an enlarged tombstone. As skull throbbed and vision erupted in stars, the Other made his way to her, Cheshire-leer stretching across his face. He held her to the tombstone with magic until he was close enough to use… _other_ means.

Then hands pinned her by the sides, trailing up to her hair – she very nearly gasped from the unbearable cold of his fingers in her scalp. It was _inhuman._ She tried to squirm and kick and push and ram, her nails clawing, her head spinning, mouth sprouting venomous insults and _near-pleas to stop and stop and stop please…_

An acidic kiss tingled the flesh of her eyelid, fizzling as she flinched.

His lips curved to a serpentine smile against her skin; she was too scared to move. They trailed down her face until at last they caught her mouth.

Pressure built in her throat; she wanted to die right then. She wanted fold inside herself and wither away.

The kiss. It was just like him, powerful, all-consuming – filling her insides with unimaginable cold. She tried to yank her head away but was caught between him and the tombstone. Her arms were pinned as well, gripped by freezing nonhuman hands. He slid one inside her shirt, grazing her navel with ice fingers. Her jaw clenched, as she swallowed her shudder; she didn't know cold could burn like this. His mouth smirked, before opening hers and delicately sliding his tongue inside. He tasted like smoke and…pain. She squeezed her eyes and tried not to cry, tried to pretend it was Malfoy's tongue sliding inside her and not some strange imaginary Albus-like nightmare. He was bruising her, biting her, sucking oxygen from her lungs. Asphyxiation. Boys and girls were not _supposed_ to kiss like this, in graveyards and with so much darkness.

She heard the rustle of feet and opened her eyes – staring over the doppelganger's shoulder at the real thing. Green-eyes stared back in blank astonishment. Albus stood, silently, wand gripped in hand for mass-murder and frozen in his spot. Perhaps he had interpreted her compliance for something it was not. Could he not see the silent terror she was in? Could he not sense the shame unraveling within her?

Unable to scream, she pleaded with her eyes, willing her cousin to understand.

 _Make this stop._

The stunned expression drew back to impassivity, and he gave an almost-indiscernible nod. Pressing a finger to his lips, he returned a look she knew all too well.

 _On my signal._

Seconds passed like hours and finally, _finally…_

A spark of light erupted from his wand, striking the doppelganger – lips tore off hers and she slipped out of his grip, gasping for air.

The Other turned and shot towards Albus, who blasted him back against the tombstone. Rose lunged for her wand, ducking as sparks erupted slicing the stone in half and dropping it on the Other.

And she and Albus ran, howls of pain echoing behind them.

* * *

Her cousin inspected the bloody sores in her mouth and cast a healing charm, then quickly drew away.

"Thanks," she muttered, not looking at him, and they began moving yet again.

He walked ahead, placing deliberate distance between them. When she tried reaching for his hand, he snapped it away almost violently and made it so he was only ruffling his hair. In the wake of such horror and depravity, there was awkwardness, and guilt, and a notion that Rose felt did not need to be duly expressed. He could not even bear to look at her.

There was an explanation building in the air, straining, aching to be chimed but held back by an entirely different fear. It was stuck, broken. Maybe _they_ were broken, now. Maybe misconceptions had severed them from each other completely.

"Look-"

"He's not you, Al. I know that."

They had never needed so many words, so many explanations.

"Fears are fears," she said, quietly. "Not fantasies."

Her words, they took from him a sigh of relief: the lungs deflated, and shoulders relaxed, and the pained terse look in green-eyes cleared. He gave the smallest, briefest nod in her direction.

"Let's find what we're looking for and get out of here."

The second-to-last place his dad had used his wand had turned out to be another place familiar to Albus'. As they traced his father's past they were tracing his own, even the parts he wished to forget. Still he anticipated some type of solution. His father, in spite of all his contradictions, had method to his madness, purpose to his schemes. A chamber glowing of moonlight resurfaced in his thoughts.

Storm-water pounded against stone as they made their way down rows of graves. In the torrent of wind, rocks and branches assailed their bodies. As sunlight faded, danger grew more palpable. A churning swamp had formed, crashing smaller headstones together.

They stepped, slipped, and then fell. She splashed down in flowing water up to her ankles.

Rain beat upon his open eyes as he gestured toward something ahead of them, yelling that they were close. He could feel it. The look on his face was fatigued but excited. Hands joined, albeit reluctantly, they plunged through the screaming whirlwind storm forward. Maybe their parents were waiting at the end of it.

The silhouette of a building surfaced in the horizon – a large dome-like structure. Albus sped up. Rose tried to keep his pace, rain pounding against her shoulders like endless fists. Vision doubled; it was hard to see clearly, but they could make out a figure standing in the very entrance of the dome.

The doppelganger had beaten them there.

Albus quickly ushered them under a thick canopy of trees, away from sight. Moderately protected from the storm, they collapsed on the ground in exhaustion.

" _Fuck._ " Albus slicked back his wet hair, burying his face in his hands. "That thing is still alive. I knew I should've burned the body."

"How did it know where we'd go-"

"Rose, he's _me_ ," he snapped. "He knows what I'm thinking. He knows every move I'm going to make." A pause. "I can't beat him."

Rain pitter-pattered around them, drowning out this confession of defeat.

"I can distract him for you."

He gave her an angry look. "You don't need to encounter him again."

"I'll be ready this time."

"He'll be expecting it. If I can predict what you're thinking, so can he."

She frowned. "He's not you."

 _"He could be me."_

"He's your _fear_ , Al," she said. "He won't disappear until you face him. Sure, he's the older version of you. So maybe he's stronger and faster – hell, _I_ don't give up just because you're …" She stopped short when he looked up at her, curiously. Then he looked away again.

"I'm not scared," he told her, stiffly. "Odds are we won't win this fight."

Her brow narrowed. Albus was always calculating risks.

"Coward."

He squeezed his eyes, ignoring her.

"Are you a wizard or not?"

"If you think I'll-"

"Did you think finding our parents would be easy?" she repeated his jeer back to him. "What would your dad think, Albus, if he saw you right now? You think he'd be proud of you? I guess I can see why James was always the favorite."

He immediately flared up. "You don't know-"

"Don't know what?" she scoffed, in a very deliberate way, aware that she was getting to him. But if she had to rile him up to get them out of this mess… "All I know is that _James_ wouldn't be a coward right now. Come to think, neither would Malfoy. Maybe that's why I prefer him to you-"

A Silencing charm slapped her mouth.

"Fine." He was already moving.

* * *

It was a risky ploy – they had never quite dueled _on the same side_ before – so they'd be playing it by ear. Albus hated the uncertainty of it all. He hated not being in control.

Before they parted, he pulled Rose back and told her to watch for unexpected knock-backs, a dueling specialty of his. She smiled and told him she knew, pointing to the scar on her knee he'd given her Third Year. She then squeezed his arm and told him something he had _certainly_ not been expecting.

It stunned him, made him freeze up in a way he didn't think he could. Was she purposely trying to rattle him at such a critical moment? But then, without further explanation, she left out into the open plain and Albus descended into nearby shrubbery to wait for his cue.

The storm surge kicked up stones blocking her path. She cut a direct path through the sludge with her wand, approaching the doppelganger.

"Couldn't stay away could you?" he chuckled, dark eyes glittering. "Where's ickle Albie?"

"It's just me."

Lightning flashed overhead.

"I don't believe you."

"He got scared and left me behind. You know what he's like. Not exactly Gryffindor material."

Albus scowled into soaking shrubbery.

"Pity," the Other tsked. "I was hoping he'd rise to the challenge. I get so bored here by my lonesome. _But-_ " He gave her a poisonous smile. _"- I suppose I could torment you for a while."_

She threw a jinx that he dodged easily enough.

Their eyes locked and then they were circling each other. He shot a hex— absorbed in her shield. Albus noticed that while she was not up to par with him, or the Other, her reflexes had improved. Her offense lacked fluidity but her shields were excellent. Albus rarely used shields in battle. He normally did not opponents a chance to attack.

This battle also gave Albus the chance to study the Other, identify strengths, pinpoint weaknesses that he could take advantage of. As expected, he was flawless. He was another _Albus_ after all, only somewhat stronger. More ruthless. He aimed for all her sensitive regions; face, chest and lowers.

Rose would not be winning this battle.

Albus watched her skid across mud, knees red, breathing hoass. The Other approached her, yet she lay there, limp like a doll. He spun a spell and then Albus heard a noise, a strange cracking like that of a bone, and then he heard Rose scream, actually _scream_ , like he had never heard before. It was not a planned scream –

He had imagined the sound many times, of her bones breaking. What it would be like to snap those fragile little wrists that fit perfectly In His Hands, but he did not anticipate it being so _ugly_. How the sound was Ugly and it was In His Head and what she had said to him Before It All and now it was ruined, _all ruined_ -

Before he knew it he was moving, wand out, lunging at the Other full force, splattering him back against the ground, not able to think about anything but the Sound, the _damned sound_ how it was in his head Like A Fucking Chip or something like her screaming but she was silent now too silent Was She Dead?

Too busy waiting for her to move, he barely noticed as an impish smile flit over the Other's face.

"Knew you'd come out."

When she didn't move, his attention flitted back to his second-rate copy. Albus gave him no time to stand up, lifting his body and _ramming_ it against the ground hard. And again. A yo-yo: going Up and Down and Up and Down and Down Deep Down Dead Was She Dead-

A hex shot missing by an inch and singeing his fingers.

A muscle in his jaw pulsed. In a single fluid movement, he drew his wand and hoisted the Other violently into the air by the neck.

"What are you going to do Albie? Kill me?"

"Soon."

With a lazy tilt of the head, he watched the Other squirm and whimper as the spell applied pressure to his neck. It was a fascinating psychological experiment, for his rate of bullshit would decrease the closer he drew to death. Submission was directly proportional to oxygen depletion— _and while Albus had no intention of killing him so easily_ — he was curious to see how his theory would pan out.

She was up again, alive, sitting. She looked like shit.

Leaving his suffocating doppelganger hoisted in the air, he walked over to her. He leant on his knee to her.

"What's broken?" he asked, his voice low.

"I-my leg, I think…did our plan work?"

"No."

"Oh."

"But it's fine. I know how to handle it."

"You do?"

He ignored the question. "How much does it hurt? Your leg."

"It hurts a lot," she admitted.

"Oh." He thought something over, then spoke quietly. "I need you to close your eyes and cover your ears." He grabbed her palms and thrust them over her ears. "Like this. Can you do that? For a few minutes."

She nodded, slowly, not really understanding.

Albus left and Rose sat on the ground, eyes squeezed, ears covered. Waiting.

* * *

There were spells Albus had never had the privilege to use, until now.

 _Hominis Tractum_ : stretched limbs until they tore out of their sockets.

Screams, his voice but not _his screams_ rang out. It was not enough. He made sure not to kill the Other too easily - what would be the fun in that? His first fifteen murders had been messy and confusing and too close together and too _quick_ … he intended to stretch this one out, in the very literal sense.

Killing someone that did not exist – did that even count? It didn't matter. There was so much rage inside him, so much hatred consuming every fibre of his being that fear no longer mattered. It was that noise. That damn cracking noise ringing inside his head ringing, ringing, ring around the Rosie Posie Rose Pose what had Rose said to him before it all that he had not bothered to understand?

 _I love you Albus._

The words fumbled around in his head distorting and confusing – maybe he had imagined them? It was possible but not probable; he was not schizophrenic. But they made even less sense if he wasn't.

Blood exploded everywhere – he hadn't noticed the bones finally tearing away. At least the screaming came to a halt.

An eye for an eye. A bone for a bone. Or twenty.

The arms had disappeared off the limp body. Unsatisfied, Albus tore the legs off too. There. Now there was a certain uniformity to his work of art. He admired his craftsmanship for a minute. Then he strolled over to the future nightmarish version of himself, a mere carcass now. He kicked in its handsome face, no longer smirking or smooching cousins, until it looked as disgusting as he may have felt deep inside.

It happened like this: you faced your fears. Then you faced them again. And again. And you kept facing them until you became the one thing worse than your fears. Until your fears feared _you._

That was what his father understood. That was why the tests continued from his childhood into forever, so that the boy with One Too Many fears could become the young man with _no_ fears. It all made sense, surely. _Surely_. Now that he had faced the worst of himself, what else could possibly be out there?

* * *

"Rose, open your eyes."

Lashes fluttered and brown collided with a molten green stare.

For a moment she could only stare, drinking the familiarity of his features – face pale, jaw tense, mouth unsmiling, forehead splattered with not- _his_ -blood….sense returned and abruptly she lurched backwards, hands splattering in mud. Albus deciphered the look on her face: it was _disgust_.  
She had heard. She had heard _everything._

"Rose, wait-"

"Don't touch me," she wheezed, looking stricken. " _Please._ "

"Rose-"

"No, no, leave me alone," she said miserably, head in her hands. "Oh my god, you're sick. I can't believe that you – _oh my god._ "

"Rose-"

"Don't touch me!" she shrieked, tears flooding her eyes. "Please…please…leave me alone. I want to go home. I want my real brother. I want him to hold me and not you."

"You said something to me, earlier. Do you remember what it was?"

She furiously shook her head, eyes squeezed shut. Water flowed over her head and down her face.

"Rose," He gave her an imploring look, his own hair drenched. "You said you _love_ me."

"I don't want to be here anymore. Oh I want to go home. I want my brother and my parents…" She was still sobbing like a pathetic child.

Sighing, he clapped a hand over her mouth. They would deal with what triggered her PTSD later.

"Rose," he tried again. "Did you mean it, do you love me?"

The hysteria dropped, for a moment, and she looked at him with large brown eyes, rain drops hanging on the lashes.

A sheepish nod.

That was that.

"Put your arms around my neck," he instructed, and she did as she was told. He lifted her up by the legs, holding her like a child, and waited for her body to relax. He pressed a quick kiss at her wet temple, and began to walk.

"Where are we going?" she asked in a small voice.

"We need to see what's in the dome. That's why we came here, remember?"

"I want to go home."

"We'll go home soon, Rose."

"Ok."

Rain calmed to a faint shower, washing away their fears.

Inside the dome stood rows of giant pillars, parallel to a breathtaking staircase illuminated by moonlight. It was an observatory; Albus remembered his father bringing him in here, as a treat for after Albus had faced his fears. It was a place for ancient astronomers, or like his father used to tell him, wizards interested in learning tales of the stars. The place, as dead as it was, held the very strong, almost unshakeable presence of his father. It was pure energy, _magical_ energy. There was almost something holy about it.

At the very top stood an altar.

On top of it were bodies. The decaying bodies of Ron and Hermione Weasley.

They had died in the middle of a graveyard.


	16. Grieve

The sky wept.

Churning bursts of thunder rolled through the bleakness, the haze-tainted air. Trees trembled. Leaves scattered wayward. Soil became sludge. Sludge became oily slick. Light tore the black sky apart. Rain beat against the hulking dome, its outside ravaged by centuries of damage.

Inside—vast emptiness illuminated by moonlight. Dust mingled in closed air. Wind and turmoil remained muted, yet peace could not be found. Tall and cracked and festering with grime, pillars stood at sides in silent reverence for the Deceased.

In the gloom of night stood two weatherworn figures, bruised, bleeding, on the verge of collapse yet standing, breathing, staring in disbelief at the altar in front.

Atop it lay dead bodies.

XXX

Albus was no expert in forensics, but the bodies of his aunt and uncle couldn't have been more than three years old, fitting perfectly in timeline with the disappearances [So _that_ part was real, just not the bit about the fire]. No spell wounds or bodily disfigurations –it was like they had one day fallen asleep and forgotten to wake up.

What a flawless death.

Trailing absent fingers through his blood-crusted hair, he paced back and forth, contemplating his father's path as he now it. Something didn't add up, no. His father was deliberate but not blatant, deviant but not criminal [he wasn't a murderer]. That meant something had gone very wrong [Which made no sense because his father wasn't the type to make mistakes on such a large scale]. Presumptions and theories bombarded his head. He squeezed his eyes and ruffled his hair, forcing himself to stay calm [Breath, Albus. Focus]. Then, he began making a mental list of simple deductions. [Yes, Albus, start with the simple things. Find the anomaly, find the anomaly-]

1\. Rose's parents had accompanied his dad for some part of his journey.  
2\. They had died before him.  
3\. Their deaths were very clean and convenient. They almost did not seem like deaths.  
4\. Someone had placed them on the altar, in perhaps reverence [his father?]  
5\. His father was not the sort of man who let others die, especially _his two best friends_ in the whole world. [He was very self-sacrificing. Like James, a Gryffindor through and through—]

XXX

For as long as Rose could remember, she had been chasing _something._

Dying brother.

Missing parents.

Truth and Revelations and Solutions to problems other people thought were unsolvable—this didn't matter to her. She had a family to reconcile and a vision to achieve, a vision of something _more_. There was no time for doubt or reason. She had pinned all her hopes and dreams on this, allowed this quest to consume her– and for what? A couple of corpses? What had she been thinking, raising her hopes when even Hugo knew better? She should've seen it coming.

They were dead. Dead. _Dead._

The more her cracked, bruised lips formed the word, the harder it stung. Her chest felt heavy. She felt as if she had been physically impaled.

Her parents were gone, and they were gone _forever_. She would not be saving them. They would not be saving her. No one would be saving her. She was as alone as she'd always been, orphaned, abandoned, trapped in a nightmare from there was no relief, but now, for the first time it truly hit her – the feeling could no longer be buried beneath delusion.

It all came crashing down.

XXX

In his mania the wizard realized he had nearly forgotten about his companion. She was a mere shadow against a pillar, folded into herself. Tears squeezed from her swollen eyes. "Rose-" He started and she just shook her head, burying it into her knees

 _Don't talk._

The air between them was terse and her emotions too unpredictable.

The day's horrors were still painfully vivid in their minds.

James had always been better at this sort of thing. Scorpius too. James had his Sincere Words and Scorpius had his Earnest Expressions. All Albus had was Cold Objectivity, and his bag of tricks layered from a lifetime of observing others. Yet, for him even to _feign_ understanding of grief was a challenge. All he remembered from his father's news of death was a twisted, overwhelming surge of betrayal. He had never felt grief. He simply did not _know_.

He hated not knowing things.

He knew he could not reach her the way she needed. Had someone more befitting of the task been present, he would have forced himself aside, but there was not, and they were all they had in the moment. Stuck. In the same Purgatory they'd always been, with frigid silence and perplexed stares and Three Hopeless Words that were lost amidst all the other Delusional Thoughts silently eating away at him.

No-man's land.

XXX

Several moments later she spoke, for verbal acceptance was necessary—"They're dead."

"People die, Rose."

"They do, don't they?" A humorless laugh amidst the sobs, and her voice broke further. "And I thought learning the truth would bring me peace… I'm a _fucking_ idiot."

Her voice, shaking, rang in echoes through the empty vestibule.

He proceeded with caution, moving closer slowly…until at last she grabbed his arm and yanked him to her. She called him _a cruel bastard_ as she coiled arms around his neck, but with a sigh of relief. It was strange that she could cling to him with such desperation when she could barely stand his presence a few minutes before. Her small body trembled against his, wheezing and sobs wracking from her throat, drenching his shirt. He allowed her the moment to grieve: it was the least he could do. Since he could not understand…

She was so small, torn shirt hanging loosely off her damaged frame. A -A _child_. All teeny wrists and wispy hair and soft skin and crumpled expressions and large brown eyes, expressive, _sullen_. She was a doll, no, worse, for dolls had at least some sort of foundation. How little it took to bruise or break her, to squeeze Life from those thin, fragile bones.

And she had just soldiered through hell alongside him.

XXX

"I don't want to die," she confided in her cousin, tears staining their cheeks pressed together. "I'm so scared, I'm _terrified_. People are trying to kill you, and they're going to kill me, and I don't want us to die. I'm so scared. I'm so scared for us all the time-"

"No one is _dying_."

He stroked a curled wisp of hair away from her jaw, but there was pressure behind the brush of his fingertips, like he was silently outraged by her words and fighting to contain it. As if the _mere notion_ of dying struck him irritating and repulsive.

"Don't be stupid," he said fiercely. "Why would you die? You're with me, aren't you?"

* * *

"Dad, _dad_."

Six-year old Albus tugged at his father's leg until the bespectacled man looked up. Then he balanced on the balls of his bare feet, dirtied from playing outside, hands clasped behind his back like an angel.

"Something happened."

The ends of Harry's eyes crinkled in amusement. James typically jumped straight into cries of _I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry_ , but his younger son was far more tactful. _Something happened_ was usually the opening line to some very interesting confessions.

"What did you do, Albus?"

"Nothing!" the boy said defensively, and then drew back. "I mean…I was just practicing magic, then Rose wanted to try. I told her no coz you said I'm not s'pposed to share. She kept following me around and being _annoying_." He flushed. "Then she ended up in a tree and _Idon'tknowhowtogetherdown_."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "We've talked about this, Albus. You're not supposed to use my wand without permission."

"That's why I used Mum's."

Clever boy.

Sighing, Harry offered out his hand and Albus meekly gave up the wand.

"Well then. Let's go rescue our little kitten from the tree."

Sunlight mangled with vibrant leaves, shooting down in beams across the grassy pathway. As they walked, Albus held his father's hand and boasted about how much progress he was making on the Levitating charm the man had taught him. He could almost do it for an _entire minute_ now.

"Albus, hold on," Harry interrupted. "So you were practicing on your cousin? On your human cousin?"

 _"It was an accident!"_

Harry didn't buy it. "Just how long has Rose Pose been up in this tree?"

The boy calculated his response for a moment, then realized there was no way around the truth. He answered in a small guilty voice: "Erm, since seven."

"Four hours! Albus, why didn't you tell me sooner?!"

The boy scowled into the ground, not answering.

" _Albus_ ," Harry said warningly.

"I forgot."

"The truth, please, Albus."

Albus thought he was clever, but his father was _always_ cleverer.

"She was being a _pain_ , Dad. I had to punish her so she wouldn't do it _again_."

Staring at his small fuming son, Harry's eyes crinkled behind his glasses.

"What on earth did she do that made you so mad?"

"I told you! She kept following me around."

"Yes, but you enjoy that…so what did she _really_ do?"

The small boy flushed under his father's perceptive gaze. His mum believed his lie in a heartbeat, but the man really was too clever. It was a nuisance, especially since he was Albus' own private instructor and the greatest wizard of all time.

"She said I'd wasn't enough like you," the boy muttered, green-eyes beating into the ground. "And that I'd never be you."

Harry looked amused. "And why would you want to be me, Albus?"

A pause.

"James wants to be you too."

"And do you have to want the same things your brother wants?"

Normally when his father asked these sort of leading questions, the answer wasn't simple. The small boy struggled for a _suitable_ response.

Correct response: No. James was an idiot.

Only Albus knew better than say this out loud.

"Albus," his father spoke quietly, "I've told you about your namesakes, haven't I?" A nod. "One was the wisest man I know. The other…he was the bravest man I know. And neither of them were anything like me." Harry paused. "I guess what I'm trying to tell you is that there are different kinds of people in the world, and none of them are _wrong_." He placed hands on his son's small shoulders. "The world needs different kinds of people. Maybe you won't be anything like me. Maybe you'll be _better_ than me. How does that sound?"

Albus gave a soft nod.

"All righty. Let's go finish our rescue mission. I think you'll have to do some explaining to Aunt Hermione. And you have to apologize to your cousin _properly_."

"But—!"

" _Albus_."

"She had it coming." The boy gave a petulant look. "She gets on my nerves. She always needs her hand held if we decide to explore. And she cries _all the time_. She's worse than Lily."

"She wants to be your friend, Albus."

"Well I don't want to be her friend," he huffed under his breath.

* * *

For many weeks Albus would replay his fears in his head, getting stuck in the same place. It was that damn snapping noise, snap, snap, snap, and three Impossible words that grew more painful with every passing silence. They confused him, distressed him much more than he could admit. They were always in the corner of his thoughts. Why was a notion that came so freely, so _implicitly_ to everyone else impossible for him to comprehend?

And yet.

Yet he _wanted_ her to say those words. He wanted to bottle them up and preserve them in his mind, to savor them. To call them up the way he called up his father's words, and to indulge in them when he felt entitled. He did not need her repeating them. He had now heard them from her lips once, and once was _more_ than enough.

Other days all he thought about was murder; it horrified him but it had unlocked something inside him, something new yet familiar, something _brilliant_. A secret power of sorts. To use this power, again and again, filled his insides with longing and revulsion.

Bloodlust.

He had never been a savage – he was a scientist: distant, objective, _in control_ —and now this obsession was consuming his reality. And becoming harder to ignore by day. He needed his father. He needed the man who taught him to master his emotions to instruct him yet again. Was this supposed to happen? What was going wrong with him?

He made brews too, for that sort of thing, stronger than Calming potions. When they weren't enough, he resorted to muggle…devices. Cocaine, marijuana, crystal meth, whatever it took. Albus Potter had always been fond of exploration, of experimentation. He didn't drink though, had too much pride for it. Aside from dulling the senses and making a blithering idiot of the most intelligent of wizards, alcohol carried the burning memory of his mother.

The days he wasn't doing recreational drugs, he was completely clean (with the exception of smoking) and thoroughly immersed in improving his skills: research, potions, wandlore, spellwork, philosophy, dueling. Anything and everything to occupy his thoughts, sedate his temper. He recited spells at night when sleep was impossible. Then he thought of Ollivander's words to him, about how wandless magic was an art so rare, it was exclusive only to the finest of wizards. So he'd sit around for hours and meditate and _wait_ – Rose usually dragged him to bed once he fell over – but patience had never been his finest attribute, and thus, the endeavor was futile. Albus did not have decades to waste on such an objective. He had answers to find _now_. He had theories about his father and webs of things he knew and did _not_ know. He lived in his head, and on those days, the slightest thing was capable of setting his temper off.

It was strange for Rose to watch him as he fought his temper; pulsing jaw, shallow breaths, flashing eyes, fingers twitching for their wand...sometimes he'd shut himself in a room or go out and smoke himself into oblivion. Sometimes he threw hexes into trees until his arm hurt. Other times the frustration came out meshed with a strange form of affection. On more than one occasion when he grew angry with her, he'd simply grab her, slam a kiss to her forehead, and storm away. He could not stand to be around her too long, for what had happened at the graveyard still haunted his thoughts.

Like grief, fear never completely went away.

Rose returned to work, attributing her injuries to a household accident ("You say you broke your leg falling down stairs, eh Weasley?" Conditioned at lying by now, she gave a firm nod). She found she could bury herself in paperwork the same way her cousin buried himself in his magic. She worked overtime. She made some extra money this way. She visited Hugo more often, who noticed something off about her but said nothing. And she didn't have the heart to tell him what she now knew.

She found out Scorpius stopped by the hospital often too, to see Hugo. Which was shocking because her brother's visiting privileges weren't granted to anyone save her, for obvious security reasons. According to Hugo, the blonde held hilarious ways of sneaking in and nearly-almost-not-quite getting caught. According to Hugo, he said he had heaps of practice in the art form. According to Hugo, he did not attempt to shower him with kisses like Rose-that would be creepy-but instead brought him large quantities of food that was marginally better than the hospital's. According to Hugo, he was actually pretty funny, had good taste in shoes, and promised to take the younger boy to a Cannons match someday.

According to Hugo, they had a bit of a _bromance._

Occasionally their visits coincided. Scorpius didn't inquire about Albus or her parents or their search, which relieved her. He also didn't hit on her, which she didn't know how to feel about. He was still Scorpius, the cocky energetic boy she knew, but some part of him had changed since she'd last seen him; it felt like he had matured. He told her about the Healer training he was starting, much to his parents' badgering, and how it was literally the most soul crushing thing ever. _You can practice me on me_ , Hugo would joke, but neither of them really laughed at that.

At any rate it seemed like Scorpius was growing up.

Rose wished she could do that too.

They talked about the quarantine, among other things.

"My dad reckons things'll calm down in a year or two," Scorpius said. "But I think it's mostly since he doesn't want to leave England."

"Well Rose and I can't, obviously." Hugo gave a stony shrug.

"And where'd we go anyway?" She rolled her eyes at her brother. "We leave England, I'll be a criminal and you'll end up in a lab. China's got a bounty on me. Germany's got a bounty on me-"

"Russia too. Just this morning."

"Thanks Malfoy."

"Always happy to help," he quipped humorously. Then, seeing her expression, he said: "It means they're terrified of you, Weasel. That can be a good thing, if you think about it."

"How's that a good thing?"

Scorpius looked straight at her. "For one thing, it means they're going to take you seriously. You speak and they're going to listen."

Rose didn't want her fearsome international reputation but the blonde had a point. Infamy and fame were the same thing. She was a public figure and could probably become a political one with enough time, like the Head, learn to influence important people. But she didn't want that life. She was only _eighteen_.

And she was terrified.

Nightmares grew worse with each passing day, and Sleeping draught simply wasn't enough. She took long walks and pondered everything and everyone, her parents, Hugo, Scorpius, Albus, the Head, her job, _her life_ -where it was heading. She hadn't had time to think like this before, and _now_ she did. She knew she had to improve her dueling. Her job required it; as did her life. She wanted to ask Albus for help but he seemed hellbent on avoiding her.

Some nights he did not return to the house.

Rose wondered if he'd been spending them with girls, but found it strange and potentially awkward to inquire about. Back at Hogwarts, he'd never shown any interest in girls, rather held a monk-like dedication to the Arts. It was easy to forget that the inhumanly brilliant wizard that had been her lifelong companion was also a boy—a young man. And like any young man, he had anatomical proclivities. It was almost laughable, in a way. She knew he wasn't a virgin but little aside from that, and it annoyed her that she knew so little when he knew the names of every boy she'd ever kissed.

What she didn't know, perhaps, was that Harry Potter's genius son had always held an extraordinary measure of control over all emotional, physical, and anatomical interests - to the point some might've been nonexistent. That the monk-like behavior came implicitly with a lifetime's obsession with magic. That his father had helped him carefully construct a persona able to handle that obsession in a controlled manner. So that the bitter boy genius transitioned effortlessly to a young man that bore no special weakness. A young man who could handle the world.

With his father's guidance gone, that control was slowly, miserably crumbling, and between the cracks hid a murderous hunger impossible to sate with distractions alone.

* * *

Control, Albus." Harry paced beside the eleven-year old boy as he threw hexes at targets. "Go for accuracy, not speed."

"You told me to get faster," the boy gasped, sweating profusely.

"Your wand work needs more attention."

Swallowing this criticism in silence, though every word had stung his insides, Albus kept his gaze steely and shot a target to the ground. In the back of his mind, an ugly thought rose—the Question. There was always the Question: why didn't James have to do this? Why only him?

In some way he might've known the answer: He was cleverer than James. His father had chosen him with purpose, _some higher purpose_ , and he was expected to revel in the privilege granted only to him. To revel and endure and conquer and not speak of it _ever_.

"Clear your mind of doubts, son. Eliminate fears, emotions, anything else inhibiting you from focusing on the present. _Focus_."

A hex shot past Albus' hand, singeing his fingers. He winced at the pinprick of pain.

"Your wand. You use it like a weapon, a sword—that's _not_ what it is. It's an extension of your mind, Albus. Stretch out with your mind. _Control it_."

He slashed an arc of silver blocking his father's spell, a surge of adrenaline running through him. Duels with his father always made him nervous. Just then the man disappeared from sight, and a hex hit the back of his leg before he could process it. Damn. Too slow. Albus fought the pain and nerves, and focused on his backswing – he'd been struggling with the move for weeks now. Harry always attacked his weaknesses, forcing on-the-spot improvement. He was standing right behind him now.

Albus moved and the spell missed his father by an inch. The man smiled.

"Decent shot. That'll be enough for today."

At these words, he collapsed on the ground, leg throbbing, sweat streaking down his thin developing frame.

Eyes closed, he felt the pressure of his father's hand on his head. Grazing his hair in a rare form of affection.

"Get some sleep, Albus. You don't know how well you're doing."

The boy savored these words, his chest racing from excitement. Praise was kept to a minimum between father and son, for it led to a false sense of accomplishment. It was necessary for him to focus all thoughts on improvement and never be satisfied with mediocrity.

When bones broke and muscles ached, the memory of _pain_ , not praise, was what drove him forward, to the edge of his physical being. Made him improve. Without the pain, there was stagnation, and there was nothing Albus despised more than _lack of progress_.

Because of the bruise forming on his leg, he would spend the next three nights _perfecting_ that backswing.

* * *

Thunder cracked outside waking her, and the shadow looming over her bedside made her gasp. She peered through the darkness, her heartbeat racing, and made out the figure.

It was Albus, his hair askew and coat soaked in rainwater.

"Rose, _Rosie_." He gripped her arm and shook her. "C'mon. Sit up. I need to show you something."

After weeks of painful silence, he chose _now_ to finally to acknowledge her?

"Can it wait until the morning?" She groaned, turning over.

"No."

"It's late-"

" _Now_." He hissed. "I have to do it _now_."

She turned back and studied him for a moment, how bright his green eyes were, and felt her body grow tense. He looked like he was on one of his muggle drugs. Opposing him would anger him, and there was no knowing what he'd do this state.

She sat up. "Fine."

He whipped out his wand, an action that always made her nervous. "Empty your mind." He instructed and began muttering an enchantment that made her eyelids grow heavy. She felt a dizzying sinking feeling in her stomach, akin to that of Occulmency training but _deeper, tenser, more gnawing. Light flashed across her closed eyelids and she saw a young Albus with his father, walking between ivory crusted walls, a ruin of some sort._

The memory shifted and Albus lay on the ground writhing in pain, and Harry lifted his wand at him and uttered the word Crucio—

The memory shifted and little Albus was battling dementors—Shift—He was running from acromantulas—Shift— Eating lunch with his father in ruins—Shift—they were sparring in some field—Shift— little Albus was navigating a deadly forest alone. She could sense his fear, almost hear the sound of his heart slamming against that scrawny chest.

At last she saw a very young Albus standing outside the shack they had visited, tears, actual tears flowing down his small pale face—

The tape of memories halted and Rose felt an invisible force yank her out.

Green eyes stared back in caution.

XXX

Now it made sense, why he was high. He _had_ to be, to let anyone so stupidly inside his mind, to go against his own reason so severely. He had shown her his past. He had entrusted her with the rare permission; he had acted impulsively, without calculation, and without knowing what would happen next.

XXX

"Oh Albus…" she began quietly.

"I've thought about it for a while," he cut her off. "Our parents. They were up to something. My dad, he showed me things, taught me things-" He broke off, green-eyes contemplating the floor. "I have pieces in my head. Memories I can call up when I need to, but I don't know how they fit together. I haven't figured out how your parents factor in yet but they _do_ and maybe you know, maybe _you_ have memories-"

"Albus," she interrupted, brown eyes watching him softly. "Your dad…that's not normal. Why didn't you tell anyone?"

Silence.

"So when I went to Ollivanders—"

"Al, parents aren't _supposed_ to do things like that to their kids."

They were in two completely different conversations.

"Albus…" He looked startled when tears sprung to her eyes. He didn't understand. He didn't understand at all, but how was she supposed to explain when so many emotions simply _engulfed_ her? He was her brother, her friend, he was _hers_ , and she now felt that she had in some way neglected him. "Oh my god." She buried her face against his neck, feeling his muscles tense at the contact. "Oh Albus." She kissed his bruised cheek and tried to pull him closer. He resisted, shivering. His hair and jacket were soaking, and the cold wetness seeped onto her bedsheets. She tried to coax the jacket off him, to simply help him stop shivering, but he pulled and jerked backwards. He looked visibly distressed. He was high—and uncomfortably aware of it.

"Stop, _stop_."

"I'm just trying to-"

"Not right now. I'm not good when I'm- I don't know how-"

She touched his arm again and he jolted away like he had been stung by electricity. He slipped back into the dark.

"Tomorrow," he said.

"It's ok, Al. It's all ok. I promise… I'm just going to hold you."

"Tomorrow."

"You're my _brother_."

"I'll be your brother tomorrow."

"I need my brother today."

The thunderous roar of the storm followed up with a flash of lightning, illuminating his features for a split second, which had instantly grown cold.

"Don't overstep yourself," he said, glaring. "You don't tell me what to do, and if you had an ounce of intelligence you'd leave me alone. You don't know-"

"I know, Albus. Look, _I know_. I saw you lose it at the graveyard, and you know what? Your little lapse _saved_ us."

He squeezed his eyes, and she didn't know if he was trying to shut her out or shut himself in.

"Sit down, please," she tried. "Let's talk. Can we do that? Is that ok? I know you don't want to be alone right now either."

A pause.

"It's because I hate storms," he conceded, stiffly.

"I know, Al."

He simply glowered back. He was higher than high— or they'd never even have this conversation. Their exchanges relied more on implicit understanding than spoken word, and their cold silences often left a lot to be desired.

She sat up, pushing her legs over the edge and planning to take full advantage of his drug-addled state. "I think I'm losing it too, sometimes," she confessed. "Maybe it's the post-traumatic stress—I don't know. _Everything_ terrifies me. With the shack and what happened at the graveyard—" She grimaced at the memory. "I don't know. I thought I'd be done. I thought I'd have what I wanted by now."

"And what is it that you want?" he asked, staring unblinkingly.

"My family."

"And you don't have that."

"No."

He was silent then, eyes beating into the wall as he mulled over her words.

"So what do you intend to do next?"

She looked shy for a moment. "I-I don't know," she admitted. "I thought when I learned the truth I'd be-" _Happy? Complete?_ "-satisfied. That it'd be enough, and it's not."

He glanced at her. "It's because you don't know everything."

 _And maybe I never will._

"It's like we're running down a track with no end. But I don't know how to stop. I don't think I _can_ stop. And I've got no shot at normal life, so why bother trying? And with everything getting worse-" _With everyone trying to kill me, I don't know how long I'll live_ "-I don't want to waste my time not knowing. I need to know certain things. I know you do too." She gave him a determined stare. "So maybe we can be crazy together. You and me. We can keep each other alive, keep looking-"

With a quick flick of a network of joints, her wrist had twisted his way—small, fragile, and trembling.

"You and me then"

She tensed. "Wait-"

"You—" He brought it to his mouth for a brief kiss. "—and me." He stared at her, the corner of his mouth curled in a barely-there tease. The gesture wasn't full malice or derision, but similar to a pinkie-promise contract between two childhood friends. He gave her hand a light squeeze and let it go.

Then he did the strangest thing; he gave her a half-smile that actually looked…kind. She was a little stunned.

And then, it was over.

"Get some sleep," he spoke, stiff and business-like once more, standing up. "We'll talk tomorrow. We won't be taking the potion again, I'm afraid we can't risk it, but I have plans about where to start looking next."

"That's...good."

"It is."

And that was that.

"Good night, Albus," she whispered, loud enough so she knew he had heard her on his way to the door.

"Yes, good night."

A pause.

"I love you."

Footsteps came to a halt at these words, and she closed her eyes, not wanting to see how he looked when he turned around. There was a pause in all the breathing in the room. She waited, with a usual mix of dread and anticipation he was capable of inspiring, and perhaps, now, just the smallest flicker of hope.

Then the door closed.


	17. Explore

Clouds hung oppressively low in the faded sky over rolling hills and patches of dried lake, augmenting the bleakness that surrounded the marshy land. There was a pollution there now that had not been there at Christmas gatherings— from a lifetime away. Some muggle factory had taken root a few miles from the Burrow after Molly and Arthur Weasley had passed away, and both areas were now long abandoned.

Two figures wafted by, long dark coats and necks wrapped in warm scarfs, their shadows stretching out ahead of them. The girl stuffed her gloved hands into her pockets, looking a bit forlorn. Her companion walked ahead of her, eyeing their surroundings with obvious disdain.

"Suffocating isn't it? How familiar everything looks."

"I could do without this trip," she admitted, breath visible in the cold air.

Albus drew a cigarette from the recesses of his pocket and lit it as they passed empty pig pens and the long abandoned chicken coop. Rose glanced over at the overgrown garden that she'd helped her grandmother prune, pluck, and spruce in hot afternoons of childhood summers. Now, rotten vegetable carcasses littered the frozen dirt patch.

Lush vines, overgrown from years of negligence, twisted across the crooked stories of the Burrow. The five chimneys dotting the roof were chipped and crumbling. In their youth the house had always been vibrant and bright. Now it was nothing more than testament to a faded childhood.

Albus stared, his expression as dull and vacant as the windows.

Old wellington boots and rusty cauldrons littered the space behind the door she blasted open. The living room looked as jumbled and cluttered by trappings as it always had, and while it was less chilly than outside, the familial presence of warmth had long dissipated.

Albus cut her notions of nostalgia short, deciding they begin their search immediately. He had more than a few theories about what his father had been up to, the answer resting in his research, which he claimed the man had hidden at the Burrow following the deaths of their grandparents—after which the place had been abandoned. They combed high and low through the house.

They searched the house for several hours, slowly trailing their way from floor to floor. She tossed through piles of Weasley Wizard Wheezes wrappings, finding nothing, then turned and watched while Albus rummage through a shelf of old muggle knickknacks. Their granddad, avid collector of such novelties, had passed away the summer before they started school— only weeks after Nana Molly. She trailed past the wall of their photos, weddings, vacations, etcetera; the couple in them, considerably younger, smiled and waved back at her.

"It's romantic, I s'pose." She smiled a little to herself. "The way they practically died together."

She heard Albus snort, though he didn't look up from surveying a particularly large muggle battery.

"What?"

"Your perception of love has grown very… distorted," he said idly, turning the metallic trinket over in his hand and transfiguring it to a ball. "I can't imagine many people think of death as romantic."

She watched him toss the ball high in the air and catch it.

"I remember a small girl that liked to pretend she was a princess trapped in a tower and dream about prince charmings." He glanced over, eyes silently laughing at her. "What happened to that girl?"

"She made friends with the dragon."

"Did she now?"

She could hear the underling smirk in his words.

"Dragons are dangerous, volatile animals," he said, his voice sly. "Can she trust such a creature?"

"She tamed it."

"Maybe the dragon tamed her."

Rose kicked a pair of moth eaten socks across the dusty floor, avoiding his gaze. Taking her silence as defeat, Albus returned to casting Summoning charms over every piece of furniture in the room. When he cast it on the wardrobe, it opened itself and clothes magically spun out of the way. In the very back there stood a shelf of old grimy books. Albus walked in without hesitation.

He stepped out holding a stack of heavy looking books, a triumph look on his face.

"The books my dad took from Ollivander." His eyes held a manic excitement. "I think they'll tell us exactly what he's been up to all this time."

Rose stared at them, skeptical. "They're in runic."

"So?"

"Well, do you know how long they'll take to translate? Weeks, Albus, _weeks._ "

The triumph expression wobbled to a sneer.

"Five days."

.

They spread the books over the long breakfast table and began their tiresome translating, working well through the night. Albus yawned beside her, nudging her at regular intervals to make them coffee. By morning both were too exhausted to continue and sprawled out at opposite ends of the couch for a quick nap, legs hanging off the ends, sleepily yanking on the shared blanket the way they used to do when younger. When she woke, an unexpected and devastating four hours later, Albus had begun translating again, his sleeves rolled to his elbows as the quill in hand moved furiously across parchment. Aside from the top two buttons undone on his starched white shirt, he looked precisely as he'd started.

"Machine," she grumbled, rubbing a weary eye.

"Pardon?"

"I said, fancy some tea?"

"Oh." The quill paused for a split-second. "Earl Grey, then."

"Don't think Nana Molly ever used that. I think she just has the regular sort."

"Then make coffee."

"So picky," she muttered as she crossed the kitchen, pinching his cheek as she trailed by him. As expected he didn't react, working with the razor-sharp focus she knew him to have.

Minutes later, she placed a steaming mug in front of him and sat down across with her own, watching as his long pale fingers trailed across paper at an effortless speed. He didn't even have to pause to think.

It was moments like these Rose fathomed how talented her cousin was, in both skill and intellect. She was deemed a prodigy by the world for her resurrection magic, and yet, at times like these, she felt _inferior_ to him. It was intimidating to be in his presence, to work beside him. His mind was made of different material—and while this made her secretly, _very_ intensely jealous—she couldn't help but be entranced by a wizard so breathtakingly brilliant.

The things he could've done if he wanted.

Green eyes flickered, breaking focus from his dark elegant script.

"You're staring."

"I'm just...thinking."

"You do it a lot." He took his steaming cup and brought it to his mouth. "Thinking, that is." There was a hint of smugness in the curve of his lips. "Do you plan to tell me about what, or shall I start making deductions?"

"Why don't you just use Legilimency?" she countered.

"Because you're very skilled at repelling it," he said, simply. "Why waste my talents where they're ineffective?"

"That almost sounds like a compliment."

"More an…acknowledgement. I appreciate talent when I see it Rose Pose."

Now _that_ was a compliment, underhanded, but genuine enough to make her blink twice. Niceties from Albus were usually like holiday decorations: planned, obvious, and purely aesthetic.

"So what, now you're just going to _ask_ me what I'm thinking? Isn't that a little direct for you? Normally I expect a bit more deceptive, bastard-like behavior."

Rather than taking offense, he smiled flatly at her.

"You're evading the question."

She ignored his quiet, perceptive tone. "I was just…you said your dad met with Ollivander to learn about wand making. That he wanted to know about the manifest of magic." A pause. "So how does that work?"

He took a gulp of coffee and set it aside, turning back to his work. "What do you mean?"

"I mean I thought magic manifested from wands."

"Don't be ridiculous, Rose," he muttered, flipping a page. "Wands are convenient but not necessary. Think about all the underage occurrences of magic that happen without wands." A snort. "All those kids that blow up their aunts..."

Rose rolled her eyes. "Well, magic is hereditary, Al. I'm sure your dad knew that."

"Yes, but it's more complex than that. Genes give you the ability to use magic, to control it—they don't create magic _inside_ you. The creation of energy out of nothing is impossible."

"Magic involves the transfer of energy," Rose said. "Isn't that what we do, as wizards I mean? We take energy and convert it, mold it into whatever spell we want to cast."

"Yes, yes but…"

He trailed off.

"What?"

"When you brought Hugo back, you had to harness the energy somehow. It's no easy feat to physically cross the boundaries of Death."

"What makes you think I physically crossed over?" she said, suddenly very defensive.

"You mentioned it to me once."

"Maybe I was being figurative."

"You weren't."

Her following silence was affirmation of the fact.

"Anyway, it doesn't matter," he dismissed, "I had my suspicions long before you mentioned it to me."

He'd studied her notes on resurrection in excruciatingly close detail.

"You used an enormous amount of energy to cross the barrier and find Hugo's soul. Of course, the larger matter is pulling him _back_ across the barrier. I doubt the actual process of resurrection takes a simple energy exchange."

She grew palpably tense. "So what if it doesn't? What does that have to do with anything?"

He stared at her long and hard and cold, as though he could read all her secrets on her face.

"It doesn't," he said, stiffly. "Not at the moment, anyway. But somehow summoning energy for the entire experiment-"

"It was _not_ an experiment, Albus," she growled. "It was my brother's _life_."

He didn't bat an eyelid.

"Summoning energy for crossing over…well it _has_ to be an insurmountable sum. It's curious and not different from other displays of magic." A contemplative pause. "I admit the whole idea has puzzled me for quite some time now."

They were at the point in conversation where Rose had become a bit lost, and Albus had simply started thinking out loud.

His head was propped on his knuckles, eyes squeezed hard in thought. "Magic… where does it _come_ from? Does anyone know where magic actually _comes_ from?"

She shrugged. "Magic just… is."

"But what if it _isn't_?" He glanced at her, the intensity of his green eyes rendering her speechless. "Rose, think. All that energy has to come from somewhere doesn't it? Maybe it comes from a place, or a source….and maybe, maybe _that's_ what my father was trying to find."

The manifest of magic.

A trill of fear started up her limbs and spread to her stomach at the thought of Uncle Harry being involved in something that sounded so…terrifying.

And her cousin's obvious fascination with it.

"Let's not jump to conclusions," she said levelly. "We don't even know if something like this exists. We need to thoroughly comb through your dad's research first."

"Yes- yes of course you're right," he replied, his voice vague like he was floating in some daydream.

Rose tried to ignore the strange, intent gleam in his eyes.

.

A set of heavy folders dropped onto Rose Weasley's already-cluttered desk. It was the Head. The man never left his office to make deliveries, so more than a single pair of perplexed eyes bobbed up.

"Sir?"

He gave a perfunctory smile that curled at the ends. Coupled with the facial scar running across his face, it gave him the impression of a sadist. "Your first official investigation, Weasley, will be the _Ordine Corvis_ case."

Whispers erupted in the office as the girl's face plunged.

Florian piped up amidst the mainly jealous stares.

"You mean she's leading it? I requested that case _weeks_ ago."

"Don't be ridiculous, Dubois. We're dealing with one of the most dangerous groups out there, and she has no experience of which to speak—" All the experience she had was of the type _not_ to speak. "—No. _I'm_ leading it. I want her on the team." The Head observed the pissed reactions at his words. He paused to savor them. "And did I mention there are three more openings?"

As aurors hurtled towards the Head, Florian in the very lead, Rose glanced at the motionless rest of her unit.

"You lot not interested?"

Mr. Hashimoto, diligently immersed in paperwork, ignored her as usual. Kovy mouthed a _fuck no_ as Cynthia yawned into her coffee.

Rose felt her nerves prickle. She wasn't ready for a case so high profile and the Head _knew_ this, surely. The _Ordine Corvis_ were a group of highly dangerous animagi, responsible for many high-scale crimes of the past decade, and suspected of being behind the Camden bombings. According to reports, they were radicals bent on infiltrating the Ministry. Terrorists, with apparently a lethal and inexplicable style of magic. Just last week Officer Humphrey and his unit arrested one of their men—reports claimed that the criminal, identified to be ex-Flourish and Blotts employee Geoffrey Croaker, was hysterical. That he had willingly surrendered at the sight of aurors, even offered up his wrists on his knees. It was the most talked-about event in the office and shaping up to be a very curious mystery.

Florian flew back looking overly excited to have a position on the case and spent all afternoon chatting about it with Rose. Cynthia wrinkled her nose at their chatter. Mr. Hashimoto worked with his usual efficiency. Kovy fell asleep midway to noon, forehead pressed to desk. Florian hit the back of his head with a rolled file, snapping him awake.

By lunch Rose was starving, but Florian coerced her into skipping to break the case in. Cynthia and Kovy ended up dragging the two of them to lunch anyway, and Mr. Hashimoto simply sauntered along. They sat at a table, sandwiches unfolded in front of them.

"Are you lot going to the pub tonight?" Cynthia chattered. "Some guy in Humphrey's unit is treating the whole floor to drinks. Said he wanted to celebrate their progress."

Kovy gave an incredulous snort. "What progress? The guy _willingly_ surrendered."

"Oh who cares…it's _free_ drinks. And our department could use some cheer after the hellish last month. We're all starting to look like dementors." She paused for their resident Magical Creature expert's jibe about dementors not actually having faces, but then noticed Florian was off talking passionately about the case with Officer Humphrey.

"He isn't complaining," Rose noted.

"Oh please, Dubois _lives_ at the office. The rest of us have lives you know."

"I don't really have a life," Kovy admitted, and Mr. Hashimoto as usual didn't comment, though Rose interpreted it as an _agreement_ nonresponse. She got the sense very few people in their occupation had lives outside of work, since there was so _much_ of it. And with the upcoming blockade, allied countries had stopped sending aid to England and those not entirely committed or too scared to stay were transferring away—and so, individual duties had grown. By the British Ministry's current standing, those remaining in Law Enforcement could be put into four categories: there were the patriots (Mr. Hashimoto), the trigger-happy die hards (Florian), the lazy ones who floated on natural talent (Kovy and Cynthia), or those simply not aware what they'd gotten into…like her.

Then again, it wasn't as if she had a choice.

The blockade—which frankly felt like collective imprisonment—frightened her more than she'd ever admit to her unit mates or her brother…or Scorpius. The blond had told her not to worry, that it was out of her hands, but at the same time it felt like he was egging her towards else. That conversation about her having international power was firmly planted in her head, but she had no clue where to go with it. Her future felt vague and murky. Meanwhile Scorpius had begun taking his seriously; they saw each other briefly during visits to Hugo—but he could never stay long because of his Healer training. Rose was happy for him. She decided she would be.

At least he knew what he wanted.

Kovy stopped by her cubicle with the customary two cups of coffee. He sat on the edge of her desk, chipping black paint off the corner in the way that annoyed her though she was too busy with paperwork to reprimand him. She was, by now, as accustomed to her colleague's bad habits as he was to hers.

"You seem… different," he commented vaguely, picking specks of black from underneath his nails.

Her quill came to a halt. "Do I?"

"Calmer I think…you seem less distracted. More comfortable. I remember when we met –you were always in a pretty pissy mood." A snort. "Wouldn't even respond to my pick-up lines."

"I… was going through some issues."

"I can imagine." She blinked and looked up at him. "I mean- sorry! I don't mean like I know, I just mean with you being…you know… _you_. Ressurectionist and all," he finished sheepishly. "It makes sense, Rose. We all get it, you know, why you brought back your brother. I think it's heroic. They won't say it, but a lot of people on the task force do too, and they'd do the same thing in your shoes."

 _You don't know the sort of stares I got on my first day_. She wanted to say this, then realizing how bitter that sounded, settled for "thanks."

They sat there, sipping coffee.

"It's hard, isn't it?" He lamented, after a moment's pause. "Growing up."

She stared down at her lap; the statement was, perhaps, too biting, too intimate, too _parent_.

Lifeless bodies surfaced her thoughts before she could stop them.

.

Following shortly after, the Head's voice called from across the room—"WEASLEY, GET BACK TO WORK OR I'LL SEND YOUR LAZY ARSE TO AZKABAN LIKE YOU DESERVE!"

.

"Then there's _him_ ," she fumed, picking up her quill again, and Kovy laughed. "Look on the bright side, at least we all have to share him. So the abuse is distributed. Last week, I heard him yell at Mendoza for wearing bright nail polish on a mission. Said it upset the integrity of their investigation."

"Bet he didn't threaten her with Azkaban."

"Well…no. I guess that's where you're special."

Rose was just glad she don't have to live with him anymore. When she told Kovy that, he grinned.

"That's the spirit. See, there _is_ a silver lining to growing up."

She snorted.

"For example," he continued. "If you do end up going to that awful boring sweaty pub thing tonight, you _might_ run into me, and who doesn't want that? _And_..." He gave a dramatic pause. "I might buy you a drink. Maybe. Possibly."

"I thought drinks were free."

"Read between the lines, Rose. You're smart."

She studied the length of her quill, her cheeks heating. "I already have a lot of reading to do tonight. The Head's going to grill me hard on the case tomorrow and I don't think I'm smart enough for both."

"Fair. Some other time then?"

"Whenever that happens in the busy life of aurors," she tried to joke.

Rather than taking offense, Kovy grinned.

"What?"

"It's the first time I've heard you say it, that you're an auror."

It was the first time Rose had heard herself say it too.

.

Her house was a mausoleum to Harry Potter by now, thanks to her cousin. But, of course, Albus was unapologetic about it, just as he was unapologetic about the fact he'd littered rune-papers across the floor trailing from the front to the back door. Or the _'mental notes'_ he'd tacked to all the walls, strings running across connecting ideas, entangling her whenever she passed by. It was impossible to walk through any room without tripping or bumping into something. The house had morphed from a potions lab to an investigation den, or rather, the _mental fortress of Albus Potter_. Unfortunately, he'd taken the liberty to move all cauldrons and potion-making supplies to her room (his was crowded with books) which made mornings _terrible_. She'd wake up coughing to haphazard fumes and find her cousin crouched by her vanity table—cleared of her vanity supplies in favor of potion ingredients.

" _Albus_ ," she groaned, twisting back into bed and wrapping her blanket over her head. "Albus. Get. _Out_."

Today, he had on his magnifying spectacles, and was carefully depositing dark powder into a cauldron that was producing was some unfortunate sour odor.

He paid her no attention.

"Albus. I need _privacy_ in the mornings," she seethed. "Are you even _listening_?"

A pillow was thrown, narrowly missing the boy in question. He didn't look up, although Rose noticed the corner of his mouth curve.

She sighed, sitting up. "I should be able to get out of bed without tripping over iguana tails or jars of flobberworms. I should be able to shower without getting the soles of my feet burned because _you_ dumped some reject potion in the tub the night before. I should actually be able to see myself in my own damn mirror. I know it's hard for you but if for one moment you could even _pretend_ to have the human decency to..."

A silencing charm slapped her mouth.

He tucked his wand away, calmly, then turned back to his potion.

"Go bathe and get dressed, Rose," he muttered. "I've set the tea. We have much to discuss today and I'm afraid there's little time for your girlish antics."

Rose floundered out of bed and carefully navigated her way to the bathroom, cursing.

.

While she ate breakfast, he placed a vial of small molten gold in front of her.

"What is it?"

A smirk. "Guess."

"Dunno."

He gave a derisive eye-roll. "Now, now. This is an easy one, Rose Pose."

Rose studied the potion for a brief minute.

"Looks kind of like Felix felicis, I suppose. But it's darker."

"I made…adjustments to the original recipe. It won't instill the feeling of overconfidence the regular does. It's safer for prolonged use."

"So this is what you've been polluting my room with?" She tried to narrow her eyes in anger but failed miserably. "I mean it's…it's… really impressive Albus."

He smiled coolly, pushing it towards her. "Well, now it's yours."

She stared.

"You're birthday was last month. This is what people do, don't they?"

She stared more.

Reinvent famous potions. Yes. Something people do.

His expression turned vaguely cold at her prolonged silence.

"You don't like it?" he spoke, with an edge.

"No, I _do_. It's amazing… really, Albus. Thank you."

He eyed her doubtfully but said nothing, instead nodded. Looked away. Sipped his tea.

And that was that.

.

"I'd like to show you something," he spoke once she had finished eating. "Have you given much thought to our earlier discussion about magic?"

In truth she had thought of little else. "Something about it didn't sit well with me," she admitted.

His brows raised.

"Well, all energy comes from the sun – in the simplest sense of course," she explained. "Light energy, before it's converted into other forms. And magic is just another form. By that understanding, I mean there's really no _manifest_ of magic."

The corners of his mouth twitched.

"All right, look." She traced letters in the air with her wand.

 _Light energy-_ _plants harness light-animal eats plants-_ _wizard eats animal-_ _wizard makes magic._

He gave a condescending half-smile. "I appreciate the admittedly very simplistic diagram Rose, but you're still wrong. Magic is different. It's larger than your breakfast." He procured one of the large volumes of his father he'd spent the night reading, flipping to a marked page. "Do you know that wandlore's a dying art? There are maybe a handful of wandmakers that take the time to understand the origins of magic."

"There's no origin except the sun, Al. Then energy's recycled. It goes in a circle."

"And I'm telling you that magic is _different_." A snort. "Look at this."

He'd circled the sketch of a stone—listed to be fluorspar, vaguely green and partially translucent. It had been molded into a large ring-like shape, its center filled with a thick layer of what the caption said was magic. She stared at it, her insides crawling.

It was palm sized. A harness for magic from surrounding energy. And instantly Rose knew what he was getting at.

It was far beyond the level of any magic either of them had ever studied.

"No. Look, we know that the resurrection stone from the Deathly Hallows exists. We know that the philosopher's stone exists, because of your father." She shook her head. "But this-this isn't even a myth, Al. It's just an _idea_."

"Magic is made of ideas, Rose. Magic is an idea. It must've been, before the very first wizard made it reality- don't you see?"

Frustration gnawed at her. It felt like one of their arguments from their school days- the sort that were all theory and philosophy and never went anywhere useful.

"I don't understand why you care so much about this," she said irritably. "How does this help us find your father? How does this fake idea stone tie into anything?"

A pause.

"I have a feeling."

She gave him an incredulous look. "Since when do you place feelings over _facts?_ "

He glowered. "Since they've had a tendency to be _right_."

.

He couldn't explain why or how; intuition was those curious things without any rational basis, like fear or grief or love. The places they'd visited with the potion he simply _known_ where to go in spite of having no clear memory. He could predict outcomes of seemingly impossible situations. Certain truths were simply buried _inside_ him- and he had so much to explore, to uncover… to conquer.

Somehow it all came back to his father.

.

"It seems so…wrong," she said quietly.

The words evoke three seconds of pure anger that were quickly contained. Instead, he shot her an annoyed look. "What's wrong about it? When exactly did seeking knowledge become a taboo?"

"When another brilliant wizard decided he wanted to split his soul in seven pieces."

It was reinvigoration of the cautionary tale that'd plagued the ears of their entire generation, and the son of Harry Potter grew silent… pensive almost.

In abrupt fashion he slammed his book shut and crossed the kitchen away from her, staring fixedly out the window. His fingers curled at his side.

"Albus-"

"Whatever's on your mind, speak it plainly," he said, voice sharp as he drew a cigarette.

Her shoulders tensed. "I'm only saying we'd be fools to ignore the past. Your father…" A pause as she gathered her nerve. "Maybe I don't know what he wanted for you, Albus, but I _do_ know he wouldn't want you to be some mindless caricature of Tom Riddle. I-"

"Is that what you think I am?" He interrupted, turning to her.

"No I- _look_ , Albus. That isn't who you are, who _we_ are…our parents didn't raise us to be like that!"

Her outburst caught him off guard, but his look of surprise was quickly replaced by a calm and searching one.

"You seem to forget we had two very different sets of parents, Rose," he said, his voice quiet. "And by result, two very different childhoods."

"I know, I—I'm trying to understand."

"Are you?"

Then she looked at him in a strange, soft way. "Oh Al…I'm sorry."

.

He scowled, as if these words were offensive to him. Albus Potter knew who he was, mind and body, and _he_ was not sorry for it. And if Rose she thought he was some _Hugo_ —some damaged little boy in need of saving—then she was regretfully _wrong_. He was very well the greatest wizard of his age, perhaps of all time.

Here she was, inflicting him with the same self-righteous platitudes as James: the single-minded belief that they were meant to be exactly like their parents who had been extolled to the level of _deities_ by the rest of the insufferable world. That they were meant to follow in their crater-sized steps and uphold their ideals. Why? Because Once Upon a Fucking Time, those ideals had _worked_.

The world was now different from as it had been for their parents. Darker. More complex, and such a mindset was bred of fear and lack of imagination… and led absolutely nowhere. Stagnation. Albus despised it. Progress, _true progress_ , was borne of risk-taking, innovation, not cowering in shadows and preachy platitudes. Instead, true progress was borne of someone willing to tread the great boundaries of magic. Someone willing to go where no wizard has dared to go before.

Albus didn't know why Rose couldn't understand, given the steps she'd taken to bring her brother back. Maybe she was too terrified of magic now. No matter. Then he would help her understand. He would show her that he-and he alone- was _right_. He didn't know why he was so compelled to prove this to her, only that in spite of not being his _real_ sibling she had compromised his thoughts and actions in a way that made him…frustrated. He could not understand why he was so irrationally affected [Albus hated _not understanding things_ ]. Further investigation was necessary.

All he had to do was stay in control.

.

.

.

It wasn't as much an interrogation as it was a public spectacle. Aurors, even ones not on the case, crowded excitedly behind the one-way observation glass as their boss entered the white-walled room, looking as arrogant and fastidious in manner as he always did.

"Evening, Mr. Croaker."

"E-Evenin'," the pudgy man stammered, eyes darting across the tall scar-faced man. "H-how do yer do, sir?"

The Head smiled pleasantly in return. "I take it you slept well last night in your cell."

 _He's pretty fucking scary when he's being nice,_ Florian whispered to Rose, who snorted in response. It occurred to her that their tyrannical boss was in fact, capable of being cordial when opportunity presented. This was also how he maintained amiable ties with the Minister and other strategically important officials, while it was only Rose who knew the true extent of his duplicity and ambition.

Sneaky politician.

Rose had much to learn from him.

"Y-yes, I did. M-much better than I've slept in months." The captive swallowed, and waited until he was further prompted. "I…I c-couldn't take it yer see, they're mad, they're all mad. I couldn't take it no more-"

"Who's they?" the Head's voice interrupted.

"All them…them ruddy crows!" he sputtered, his fleshy face turning pink. "Vultures, more like! Savage animals!"

"Aren't you one of them?"

He flared up instantly, almost like a ruffled hen. "I'm done with them filthy vermin forever! After…after what they done did to them muggles."

"Is that why you turned yourself in?"

All the aurors behind the glass stared as Croaker broke into tears. The Head watched in mild amusement.

"I-I'm sorry! I didn't think anyone was going to get hurt!"

 _Like we've never heard that one before_ , Florian muttered. Rose shushed him, straining to listen.

"Mr. Croaker, you must understand that I care very little for your emotional state," The Head spoke callously, but not without a hint of satisfaction. "My job is pure and simple, to investigate and apprehend criminal activity. Now, if you do not reveal all you know about the Camden bombings, there's very little chance you'll see daylight ever again."

"Send me to prison then," the man cried. "I'd be safer there."

 _Well, he's obviously never been to Azkaban_ , Florian said cheerfully.

Rose quirked an eyebrow. _Have you?_

 _Well…no. But I recall you were almost sent there once,_ Capitaine.

 _Thank you for the remainder._

"You don't know what they're capable of. The kinds of magic they got, kinds I never seen before and I reckon you haven't either. You don't know…" An audible swallow. "They're going to kill you all."

"I assure you every member of my team is accustomed to death threats."

But the man was inconsolable: he rattled his head miserably, over and over again.

"You don't know." He kept repeating.

* * *

CHAPTER 17.5

* * *

Albus had been engrossed in a piece of paper all morning, not eating and dodging all her attempts to engage him in conversation. He was in one of those moods where he couldn't spare her time because there was something more pressing in his head.

She peeked over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of what he was writing. But he wasn't writing; he was drawing.

"It's good," she commented.

Abruptly, he shifted the paper away and shot her a hostile look.

"What is it supposed to be?"

"None of your business."

"But you're _drawing_ ," she said, smiling a little. "You haven't done that since we were kids."

He drew an annoyed breath and held it, ignoring her. But she hung over his shoulder until he had to give in.

"I'm trying to reconstruct one of my memories," he told her, stiffly. "I've been thinking about that stone we discussed the other day- I was trying to figure out why it stood out to me, why it was relevant like you said-" He broke off. "That's just it. Things don't stand out to me _unless_ they matter. So it had to mean I'd seen it somewhere before."

"With your father?" she asked, hoping her voice didn't convey her fear. It had been maybe too much to hope that he'd forget all about the stone.

"He took me…many places. It's difficult to remember every single detail."

Rose stared at the picture.

"It looks like some sort of cave."

"Does it?" He turned it over. "Interesting."

"Albus."

He didn't respond but the quill stopped, indication enough that he was listening.

"Let me try…try to see if I can find your memory. I could go inside your head, like I did that other night. What was it, some weird way to do reverse Legilimency?"

"More like a lack of Occulmency," he said, eyes narrowing. "And you didn't go in, I let you in. Within reason, of course. I'd never give you free reign in my head."

"But could you do it again?"

He glared at her.

"Just that one memory," she said carefully. "I promise I won't…wander."

He surveyed her quietly, a bit hostilely, as if expecting some ulterior motive. Rose felt a little wounded but tried not take it too personally; habits were hard to break and Albus just wouldn't be Albus without the scrutinizing behavior and the overly suspicious edge.

Then finally, a small nod.

Given that he wasn't high, it had be a miracle.

"Wait, how close do I need to sit for this to work?"

He ignored what he probably thought was a stupid question, instead tapped the table in front of him. She climbed into her designated seat and he enchanted the table lower so they were face to face. She nipped his cheek and he rolled his eyes, swatting her hand away.

"Eww, you're not going to try to kiss me or something right?" she teased, trying to lighten the mood and inwardly wondering whether it was in bad taste to make _that_ joke. They had a mutual, near-subconscious pact to never mention the doppleganger _ever_.

But if Albus was affected, it didn't register on his face.

He had his wand ready and aimed at her. "First thing, you'll need to empty your mind, which I'm sure won't be very difficult for you. Then-"

"But shouldn't I cast the-"

"I'm afraid not. I don't trust you to cast it properly. Now sit still."

.

This time was different than before; there was no reel of preselected memories flashing across her eyes. Instead she was standing in the darkest darkness she'd ever seen. The momentary lack of anything frightened her, and he must've realized this, because his subconscious readily built itself up to resemble the hazy inside of a building. Something ordinary. Something familiar to tread.

A passageway in the Burrow.

She tried walking but her feet hovered over the ground. It was dream-like, surreal. Her surroundings flickered like a broadcast on the wireless.

Wafting through Albus Potter's head was like swimming in ice-water—how _fitting_.

Something on her right caught her eye. A glint of bronze, metal, circular like a knob. Doorknob. As she reached for it, something jerked her body back. A _whooshing_ sound flew over her head—metal lattices shot through the faux-air and twisted across the doorway.

His voice thundered through his entire subconscious, angry, booming against her skull.

 _What are you doing? Did I tell you to go there?_

She felt dizzy. "Sorry. I thought-sorry-"

Something cold grasped hold over her body and pulled her _forward_ —apparently he wasn't taking any more chances with her.

Rose had been violently reminded just how private her cousin was about his thoughts.

.

Much sooner than expected, she found herself picked up like a doll and dropped in the memory.

It was off-color, grainy like he was barely able to hold it together. It must've been old. On her sides were ivory crusted walls of a rocky structure, like a hollow in a large wall. She watched two figures float by her to the right, Uncle Harry carrying young-boy Albus in his arms. Her uncle looked as distinctly Harry-like as she remembered, and there was no other way for Rose to describe him. Albus had his usual scowl, but it was refreshingly childlike— closer to the pout of a boy who was made to do something he didn't particularly want to.

Their mouths moved but their conversation was inaudible; so either Albus couldn't remember it or he had muted it. Maybe he didn't want her to hear what he considered was a private exchange.

Retracting her gaze from the admittedly very adorable little boy (she decided against mentioning this observation to the older counterpart; it would only piss him off), she followed their paths down the cave. There was more grainy turbulence, entire pieces of the rocky structure missing from memory. Then Harry stopped and his mouth was moving again; he was pointing to something indecipherable in the distance. Rose followed it, trying to move as far as the memory would allow her. The indecipherable became something vaguely decipherable.

She stared in disbelief.

The stone, its center brimming with magic.

It was real and it was somewhere out there.

.

.

.

There was a man in the world who was _not_ a man.

He was barely a living thing, a void, an echo that could neither be heard nor understood. He was a constant in the fabric of Time, stretching out with no beginning or end to be remembered. A contradiction of Nature itself.

He had passed through the world like a shadow for centuries now. Watching as Dark Lords rose around him…and fell. For they would always fall, as leaves fell to the slightest change in wind. It was Nature's manner of recycling. Time was on a perpetual cycle of darkness and the man alone stood as it's one and only source of enlightenment.

Once he had been a real man, perhaps. He did not like to recall these days of ignorance and obscurity, nor incite details of an anguish that was no long relevant. He had been deafened so that he could now hear. He had been broken so that he was now whole. And only when he had been pinned by the arms, tortured and mutilated, physically and forcibly blinded, it was then at last that he learned to _see_.

He had transcended his human form completely and utterly.

He was creature borne of war, of suffering, of oppression, and of _power_. But it did not end there; if it did, then perhaps the threat they faced would be more…manageable.

.

.

.

Healer training had completed so all that was left were examinations which Scorpius was under grueling preparation for. He'd come over to get brewing pointers from Potter, who'd been as dismissive and haughty about the matter as one would expect Potter to be but _hadn't said no_. Because- and Scorpius knew this- his best mate reveled in proving his intelligence to others. The blond, who was reasonably bright but not exactly brilliant, had taken advantage of this many times in school- especially before his OWLs which had incidentally turned out spectacular and thrilled his parents and opened his future to the likes of Healing. On some level Scorpius may have owed his academic success to Potter. He was never going to admit it though.

Potter had used Scorpius all through school, but Scorpius had used _him_ too.

Slytherins, the pair of them.

Scorpius sat under a canopy of autumn-colored leaves in the large Weasley yard, studying; there was a cool breeze, sporadic, chilling his hands and blowing his hair askew. He ruffled it out of habit. He kept glancing over at Rose, also out of habit, eyes trailing over her form. The smooth neck. The slender arms. The long…legs. He tried not to let her catch him, though occasionally his eyes caught Potter's, whose expression would darken as if he knew exactly what Scorpius was thinking. Then his ears would redden and he'd go back to staring at his book.

Rose was too busy dodging spells to notice.

The cousins were sparring, in the way they used to do back at school. And often these sparring sessions had the potential to go very, very badly…for Rose.

Torrents of crackling light sped past her—narrow miss—leaves rattled from trees in nearby vicinity—he tilted his head—she outran another wild hex—slapped her leg—she was rolling—face swallowed dirt—lifted herself back on her feet—he smirked at her anger—blocked her _Incarcerus_ and tossed it back—she threw up a shield—torpedoes of red were fired—shield cracking—her feet skid backwards—light burst through—she flew back.

In the past fifteen minutes Rose had had herself thrown all over the yard, while Albus had barely _moved_.

"You call that a hex?" she panted, standing up. "My gran could do better."

"Don't you two share the same gran?" Scorpius piped from his so-called-studying. "I admire the energy, Weasel, but really, that insult doesn't even make sense."

"Rose Pose has a spotty record for trying to make sense," Albus muttered. The boys exchanged a very Slytherin smirk.

" _You're_ spotty," she snapped back with a jinx. He leisurely side-stepped it, and threw a streak of silver her way.

It hit her hard but not as hard one would expect Albus to hit. Something about his manner of dueling was subdued, like he was playing with her than fighting decently. This boiled her blood. She'd wanted to _spar_ , to improve, and she couldn't do that if her opponent was being coy. She'd seen him. She'd _experienced_ him. He could do better.

And so could she.

She refocused herself and aimed a hex. It flew over his head into trees. Leaves exploded everywhere.

He brushed a stray leaf from his shoulder in a careless sort of way. A small smile played on his lips.

Now she was _pissed_. She torpedoed hexes, each one harder and faster than the last.

Albus stood there, slashing through each with ease. He felt no urgency to dodge, to even conjure a shield. Colors collided in the space between them. Arcs clashed in an explosion of light.

The bullets stopped.

Rose panted, leaning on her calves. Sweat dripped down her elbows.

He tilted his head derisively. "I've exhausted you."

"Five minutes." she growled.

.

Potter had stalked inside to check on some pet potion of his, inadvertently leaving Scorpius alone in the yard with Rose. She poured water over herself and Scorpius found himself struggling not to stare. He stared fixedly at his book. Minutes passed. Then she was leaning beside him, inquiringly, his concentration waned further.

"How's the supposed studying going?"

"Funny," he muttered, then rested the book on his head. He gave a hefty groan. " _Weasel_. I'm going to fail. Here. Quiz me on the properties of Skele-grow."

"I'm sure you'll be fine." She encouraged.

"I always hated potions in school. Don't know how the hell I got an Exceeds Expectations." He said heatedly. "Honestly, can you think of _one_ potion I didn't blow up?"

"Don't remember. I wasn't in _every_ class with you, Malfoy."

"Wish you were."

It was a strategic line, placed cleverly and thrown casually, but when she didn't take it Scorpius opted to move on.

He collapsed backwards with an exaggerated sigh. "I don't have the aptitude to be a Healer. I'm good at organizing heists, picking locks, and sneaking into places I shouldn't be sneaking into. Not _potions_."

"Sounds like you have the aptitude of a thief."

"Well, _yes_. Unfortunately I can't really make a living off my natural Slytherin abilities… I blame Potter entirely. He's claimed the market."

A chuckle that showed she understood only too well, followed by a pause.

"Hey Malfoy."

"Yeah."

"Why Healer, then?"

He looked at her, uncomfortable. "It's cheesy. You don't want to hear it."

"Go on."

"No it's really bad."

" _Malfoy_."

"I'm not going after what I _want_ , Weasel. I'm going after what I _should be_. I…" He stopped a bit timidly, until Rose shot him a curious look. "After the great war, you know what my family's reputation was like. The opposite of yours. Many people didn't-and _still_ don't think my dad should've been pardoned even though he's _changed_. I know the way people look at us, Weasel, I know what they _think_. They think we're a bunch of villains, or a bunch of useless rich snobs. And I…" He trailed off, sounding a little bit sheepish and a little bit angry and for a moment Rose looked like she understood precisely what he was feeling.

"Yeah I get it, Malfoy."

"Yeah?"

She nodded, catching his nervous gaze for a moment before looking away. "You think if you try hard enough at it, you'll change how the world thinks. That if you do something good with your future, people will forget where you come from."

"Thanks for summing it up." He muttered. "I told you it's cheesy."

"It's beautiful."

He put his book over his face and tried to be casual about it, and certainly _not_ to hide his reddening ears.

"So that's why, huh," Her voice mused. "The whole stubborn friendship with Al. He doesn't give a shit about your past."

It was half-true. Potter didn't give a shit about his family history and that was nice. And the fact their peers had, once, anticipated rivalry between them may very well have hammered in the nails of their alliance. Typecast outcasts. Partners in crime. They had horrible-sounding first names and _unforgettable_ surnames and chips on their shoulders for it they'd probably never outgrow. It was more than enough common ground. But if Scorpius was Slytherin's Ice Prince it was by reputation only, for Albus was King and he ruled his Kingdom with an Iron Fist. He was the coldest human being alive and selfish about the territory that came with it. Where it came to Rose was where the territorial lines may have...grown murky.

"Nah, Weasel. I'm just a sucker for bad attitude and cheekbones," he said dryly. "Those sparkling green eyes make my heart swoon."

They snickered together.

Scorpius nodded his head toward the approaching figure, whose eyes were certainly _not_ sparkling and whose wand was fully equipped in hand. "You should probably get back to sparring. Kick hisarsefor me, would you?"

She grinned, pulling to her feet. "You're team Rose then."

"Always." He smirked lazily "He's my best mate but someone needs to cut his ego down to size. That thing is suffocating."

"You're telling me. Do you know how hard he is to live with? Do you _know_ what my mornings are like?"

"Weasel." He gave her an incredulous look. "I've shared a dorm with him for _six years_."

.

Round two was even worse.

Rose, with muscles heartlessly conditioned, relied on brute strength behind spells more than anything. Maybe it was compensation for her lack of casting abilities. She fought as one would expect a young soldier to fight, with a desperate sort of dedication. Meanwhile Albus was a ballerina. Practiced. Cat-like. His movements were elegant and languid as he attacked, lacking her urgency. His figure was lean but not too lean; he'd never been one of the muscley type of boys. And there was a strange smoothness between movement and action, a sort Rose found herself envying. She had taken solace in Auror training, thinking that would make her better than Albus. It hadn't.

It wasn't just that. She was distracted now, her thoughts preoccupied by things not strictly magic—the break had not helped. Her eyes kept trailing over to that blond head, immersed in his so-called-studying—well he _was_ studying now. He was so comical when he tried to be serious. Once she left school Rose thought it was the end of their something-of-an-acquaintance. But Scorpius wasn't lying about being good at sneaking into places he shouldn't have been sneaking into. It was strange to see someone like him in her world; he didn't belong but he wouldn't _leave_. The Slytherin by reputation may very well have been a Gryffindor in disguise; still, it was his Hufflepuff side that seemed to somehow stand out the most. The persistence for friendship. The downplayed good nature. She blamed Hugo for warming up to him so quickly… it was silly. And she felt silly even thinking about it.

A hex flew past her shoulder snapping her back to reality, and she rounded with a beam of blue.

Missed. Damn.

When her gaze trailed yet again, she caught Albus staring at the same spot. He always seemed to catch on too quickly. It took her a moment to decipher the look on his face- eyes narrowed and steely, jaw tight. His wand gripped tighter and Rose somehow knew-and readily dreaded- his next move.

She shot him a lethal glare.

 _Don't you dare._

His lips twitched upwards in a defiant smirk.

The day was about to be ruined in five ill-fated seconds. It would take Albus two seconds to aim his wand. It would take Rose all four to bolt across the yard, sprinting and leaping and hoping _it's not too far, it's not too far, it's not—_

The fifth second—she'd lunged across grass shielding Scorpius' oblivious body with hers completely, her mouth in a fierce snarl, her wand stretched in front of her. A bright burst of light erupted from her wand and slashed through his hex.

 _She had done it._

Her body shook with terrified breaths and she lowered her wand, hands clasping into grass. She could feel Scorpius' hand steadying her back, his own breath hoass and rapid against her neck.

Albus returned a dull look.

"Malfoy," she panted, glaring at her cousin. "Maybe you should study inside. With all the stray spells out there."

Scorpius pulled to his feet, looking from the angry disheveled Rose to the composed Albus and back to Rose again, gaze lingering on her. She offered no explanation. He was confused but not quite so oblivious as to think what had just happened was some stray spell.

"I'll…just go inside then."

But first he pulled her up, clasping her hand and holding it longer than he needed to. Then, with one last strange look between the cousins, he departed.

.

"What the _fuck_ was that?" she snarled, watching him light a cigarette. "Why on earth would you—you wanna have a go at someone? Have it at me. Attack _me_. What's the matter? You've never held back before-"

"I don't need your permission," he snapped. "Stop talking."

She drew an enraged breath.

"Scorpius Malfoy's the sort of friend people _dream_ about having—do you know that? Do you even know how much he thinks of you? And you just nearly attacked him!"

He blew smoke in the air like an impatient dragon.

"You're the only one dreaming about Scorpius Malfoy," he muttered, acidly, and rounded onto her. "Is that it, do you plan to die with him too? Because I'm sure there are plenty of people out there willing to acquiesce that request," a sneer, "You're perception of love is more distorted than I thought. It's almost too pathetic."

She flared instantly: his allegations were ridiculous and _immature._

"Why don't you grow up?"

"Why don't you go to hell?"

She drew back at these words that were too harsh, too cruel, even for him.

"I think if I did, Albus," she said, her throat tight. "I think you'd miss me."

A pause.

"You overestimate your importance then."

"I just obliterated your hex. Maybe you're the one who's underestimating _me_."

"You'd never survive a real duel with me," he spoke in a quiet, lethal voice. "I'd have you on your knees. I'd have you begging for mercy."

These words chilled her bones, for there was a quiet presence of truth to them. She knew Albus was merciless when he was angry, and just how far his anger went when he was pushed. She wanted to think she was the exception to this. She wanted to think there was something past the animosity. But past the layers of brilliance and ambition and hardness and cruelty was…more hardness, and bitterness, and hatred, and an agony you might miss if you blinked. And there was the fear of misplaced hope, that when she got to the center of him she'd find nothing but hollow empty space. A hollow boy. A boy with not enough soul left in him.

 _Maybe the dragon tamed her._

No.

 _I'd have you on your knees. I'd have you begging for mercy_.—she'd use these words to fuel her determination to work harder, get better, to match him wand for wand. They'd tick in her head and heart for years to come as she built herself up. Rose was not a quitter.

"You're wrong you know," she called after him. "You think it's my feelings…it's not. I'd take a hex for Malfoy the same way I'd take a hex for anyone. The same way I'd take for Hugo….even for you."

He turned, scowling at her. "I'd never ask you to."

"You'd never need to"

"There's a reason there are no more heroes in the world, Rose. They all died. They died because they were stupid." He tucked his wand away, stalking away. "I think we're done for today."

.

There was something very strange going on with Rose's memoir.

The shaky international Wizarding relations and the looming threat of England being put under blockade; both of these were pertinent _catastrophic_ things, and yet she approached them with all the nonchalance of a weather report, treating them as mere _subplot_ to the early adventures of her and Mr. Potter.

Instead, the memories she shared were very carefully chosen, even if I couldn't determine rhyme or reason yet. With ten days remaining it would have been impossible for her to tell me everything – so she had focused the scope of her memoir onto she felt was most vital for me know in context of the war. Not simply know. _Understand_.

She'd spent a disproportionate time spent describing the young Albus Potter and their shaky alliance – I may be so bold as to call it a friendship. It was strange. History would remember them as lifelong rivals, but _this_ \- no, there was something off with what she chose to remember about their younger counterparts. Something she could not or was unable to explain. Something too complex for labels. There was a desperation about it, the _almost_ -moments she chose to share with me; it was like she was beckoning, _aching_ for me to reconsider the boy history universally condemned as a monster.

But that was not all.

Sometimes, it wasn't what she chose to tell me but what she _didn't_ choose to tell me.

Rose was evading something; she was purposely diverting my attention towards smaller mysteries, hoping to preserve my opinion of…what? Of Albus? Or herself? Had she forgotten that I was a _historian_ , albeit nonmagical, but one who'd studied her (and Mr. Potter's comparatively shorter) life story in rather shocking detail. I knew where history was headed-I knew that things would get ugly. I knew the order in which deaths would begin occurring. I had the body counts of every battle memorized—battles where Rose and my people were on fundamentally opposite ends. It was challenging but necessary to look past the curtain of blood that severed our worlds. I had a professional obligation to understand the war. I had a personal obligation to understand Rose's life as it stood, independent from the surrounding chaos, not yet marked by war.

We had become, to some extent, a form of friends.

"What are we going to discuss next, Rose?" I queried. "You're the story-teller."

The old woman framed me one of her smiles that, while polite, would never reach her eyes. It was a practiced courtesy-I had wonder when and where she'd picked the habit.

"You're the historian, Mr. Walker."

There was so much on my mind. Harry Potter, the _Ordine Corvis_ , the manifest of magic, the mysterious nonhuman man, Scorpius Malfoy… would she ever tell me why _Scorpius Malfoy_ was deemed the war?

I bit my tongue, holding back frustration over not being able to piece it all together.

I was getting ahead of myself.

Instead, I flipped through my notes. "In my timeline of events the next thing should be…Hugo's abduction."


	18. Descend pt 1

Draco sat at the luxurious Malfoy breakfast table, enjoying breakfast, combing through the grim headlines of the newspaper, and patently ignoring the sounds of wife and son bantering on sides of him—apparently, some healer practice potion of Scorp's had gone awry and left the entire sitting room in shambles. The house-elves stood at a safe distance, observing the pair in mix of fear (their Mistress's yelling) and disgruntlement (Scorp left the _worst_ messes). The father rolled his eyes, flipping a page. Daft kid.

On any other given day, Draco would've joined his wife in taking the mickey out of their hapless son, but today, he simply couldn't muster the _enthusiasm_. Tori was well enough into her rant without his help, and disheveled Scorp now stood flush in terror with the elves. Draco dipped a biscuit in his morning tea and chewed slowly, contemplating more serious matters.

His family knew little about what he did, what he _knew_ —how his occupation granted him insight into rather startling political machinations. He'd been a long term attorney for many big names out there, and the 'unofficial' legal adviser for many more; he was acquainted with the likes of Mockridge and Hopkirk, as the famous Bones family, and had had dinner with the Minister on more than one occasion. Through these influential ties, he was granted a look into the subversive underbelly of Wizarding politics: the schemes, the powerplays, the _subordination_.

Rumors to upend the Minister floated between mouths of prominent officials.

Now, Draco wasn't a big fan of Shacklebot, but he knew the aging, complacent wizard was _still_ better than his younger, more ambitious second-in-command. Deception was practically a prerequisite for the job, making goodness relative and not the criteria; instead, what it _really_ came down was reputation. Following all the recent muggle bombings and threat of blockade, the Minister had become a rather unpopular figure. By public perception, Shacklebot was allowing England to crumble, while the Head of Magical Law Enforcement—a man of _less_ _diplomatic_ means—was trying to hold it together. Riots and protests had begun at the exterior level, demanding a change in power, and now the interior was slowly following suit.

The Head of Law Enforcement had gained considerable standing.

Still— Shacklebot was the man _Potter_ wanted in office. While Draco and the _ruddy_ _Chosen_ _One_ had never been friends in life (school boy grudges apparently last forever), the post-war restoration process had built an unspoken level of respect between them. And not just between them, it was their whole filthy Potter-loving generation: united for a common cause. The ten years following the Great War…were sickening and glorious all at the same time. Peace treatises between wizards and all magical creatures (even those centaur half-breeds), mudblood equality campaigns, that fucking S.P.E.W nonsense Granger was always on about—

Somewhere down the line, something must've happened because the restoration stopped. Stagnated. The relics of the Great War—people that had been the catalysts for change—passed away. The Order of the Phoenix disbanded. Kingsley's hair greyed. Some of it was natural causation, some of it was due to Potter's inexplicable drifting away.

People's theories and speculations as to _why_ , in Draco's opinion, were utterly ridiculous. He figured the man had simply gotten sick of constantly being in the public eye. After a childhood spent being _exploited_ by choice adults, torn by expectations, ravaged by _fear—_

Draco too craved a life of quiet and privacy.

Contrary to what people thought, he did not hate Potter. Sure he didn't _like_ the Gryffindor either, but that was to be expected. Not like Potter especially cared for him either.

Still, when their sons in school somehow became…mates, Draco didn't throw a fit as large one would _expect_ him to throw.

The day little Scorpie wrote home about his new friend, large crooked handwriting sprawling excitedly off the page— _He's bloody terrifying but sharp as a whistle and loaaads better than sodding Zabani—_ Draco recalled turning to his wife, mouth twisted oddly, and saying _well, befriending a Potter is still better than dating a Weasley._

Draco would later learn his son was full of surprises.

The boy was bizarre in his choice of company (inherited from his mother), too bold for a Slytherin, and more than a little rebellious—though his rebellion held a homemade quality the father could only find endearing. Draco had never held the nerve to rebel against _his_ father and felt maybe he had missed some adolescent rite of passage. Though it wasn't just him. Childhood spent in the wake of a monster had forced his entire generation to grow up too fast. They were the generation _who had seen it all_.

Or so Draco thought.

Things were clearly not so much better now. Upheaval coated every corner of magical England. It came in the form of mindless violence but woke something darker in the hearts of witches and wizards—something that could not simply be the work of a dark lord. There was a sort of uncertainty behind the unfolding events. An ambiguity. A… _confusion_ he knew no one could really rationalize.

 _Why?_

At least his generation had always known the threat they faced.

Shaking away these solemn thoughts, Draco looked up at his _anything_ - _but_ - _solemn_ family: a group of characters that he loved in spite —or perhaps because— of their absurdities. For whom he'd do anything. His wife and son (and by some extension, the elves) were utterly _ridiculous._ At the current moment, the elves were busy exchanging high fives. _The Mistress_ had ordained a manor wide ban on all Scorp's potion-making endeavors, which, obviously, meant less cleaning-up for them. The boy cast them a betrayed look, before to turning back to his parents.

"You can't punish me for _studying_ ," he protested. "I have my exams in a week. Where am I supposed to practice now? What sort of parents do this to their kid?"

"The Slytherin sort," Draco answered dryly, sipping his tea. "Go practice in the yard."

"Oh no, he's not going anywhere _near_ my chrysanthemums. He can find a hovel to practice in if he wants, as long as it's _not_ here."

Scorp looked perplexed. He shot a pointed look at his father, but the man had no intention of getting caught in the crossfire. No one won against Angry Wife.

"Do what your mother says, Scorp. Find a hovel."

"You lot don't love me," he grumbled. Slinging his bag of potion things over his shoulder, he stuck a finger out at the elves (who responded with equal enthusiasm) and, with an exaggerated sigh, stalked toward the door. Sodding soppy kid.

Tori called for him to be back by dinner. Draco gave his usual stern remainder to stay off empty streets.

"Stay where there are people, but not _too_ many people. Susan Bones' daughter got caught up in the middle of some riot last week. The nutters beat her till she couldn't see straight. If you see any fighting, _stay away._ Let the aurors handle it."

" _Sure_ , dad."

"I'm serious." Draco gave a grim look, and the boy's expression immediately sobered up. He nodded.

Scorpius stood knocking at the Weasley residence.

Later he stood, apron clad, face in dense concentration as he sliced mandrake roots. His movements were overly-attentive, as if he expected he expected the slightest mistake to cause an explosion. Dropping them into the cauldron, his face found relief when the liquid simmered to a pleasant blue shade. Then he haphazardly scoured through Potter's cabinet for a bottle of horklump juice.

"Three drops only," came the mumble behind him. The boy sat reclining in his chair, puffing smoke.

"Three drops. More and it'll-"

"-overpower the boomslang and turn the potion poisonous," Scorpius finished dutifully.

Potter _hmm_ ed in agreement, a faint sound not all there. Scorpius peeked a glance at him: just the very way he sat was offensive, with his legs spread wide open, head splayed back. His shirt was unbuttoned completely and his hair was unkempt. Dark circles rimmed closed eyes. While it was impossible for his best mate to look anything but attractive, even at the heights of his magical mania, he was scruffier than Scorpius had ever seen him.

His wand was not at his side but tossed idly on the table beside him, and Scorpius couldn't help but find this strange. Potter normally clung to the instrument with the fervor of a lover.

Potter alternated between smoking and injecting his arm with some muggle potion that made his fingers curl and his closed eyelids flicker. Then, a sharp, shaky exhale, the stretching of his limbs. Heroin. Scorpius had learned a bit of muggle pharmacology as part of Healing training – apparently, _chemistry_ held the same process of rearranging properties as their _potions_.

No wonder Potter seemed so enthralled.

"Muggles have proven themselves to be…unexpectedly brilliant," he murmured, breathing deeply. Sweat coated his forehead.

"Cigarettes and opiates." Scorpius snorted. "Bloody genius lot. Congratulations. You'll never need to brew a poison again, Potter."

"On the subject of brewing poisons, your potion-"

"Don't you start. I haven't messed it up _yet_."

Potter's eyes fluttered open, vaguely amused and far too keen, Scorpius thought, for someone with so much _chemistry_ in their system. "Muggles take opiates as a pastime, Malfoy. They have more… effective ways of killing people."

The topic of casual discussion had grown quietly unnerving, and more than rhetorical, but Scorpius summoned his Muggle Studies knowledge and approached it with the nonchalance and sarcasm the other boy had grown to expect from him.

"Oooh, guns and small knives. So scary," he jeered. "I reckon we've got the upper hand with our wands, Potter."

"Don't underestimate muggles. They can do more without magic than we ever could. And as for our wands…" Potter gave a lazy bat of the eyelids. "They're twigs. Hardly the most reliable sort of weapon."

It was a strange response from the boy who all but infatuated with _his_ wand, yet there it sat on the table, untouched.

"On the subject of undeserved violence," Scorpius interjected—prelude to a conversation he felt was quite overdue. A question had plagued his mind since that day the cousins had been sparring.

"Why'd you attack me?"

Undoubtedly his best mate was a bastard, but Scorpius liked to think he was reasonable enough not to pick fights simply for the _sake_ of it. Albus Potter made intelligent, rational decisions. Save for the Hogwarts incident (where the alternative would've put both their lives were at stake) he had _never_ attacked Scorpius. He had never been inclined to, and now Scorpius couldn't help but feel confused and distraught and the slightest bit hurt, though he knew that sort of emotional response would get him very little from the boy.

"Fishing for an apology, Malfoy?"

"An explanation would be nice."

"I don't normally attack you, do I?" Potter tilted his head, as if contemplating the weather. "I suppose that makes my behavior a bit…inconsistent."

"I'll say."

They were in brave new territory now— territory Scorpius wasn't sure he _wanted_ to be in with Potter. The boy had grown strangely quiet and pensive then, and Scorpius didn't know what to do except return to concocting his potion. Anger simmered inside him.

"You know, I _rely_ on you to be a consistent bastard," he said, squeezing his mandrake roots too tightly. "You can't just change your mind. You gave me permission _years ago_ -"

"And why _can't_ I change my mind? Isn't that what people do?" Potter didn't snap, but the soft timbre in his voice was lethal enough.

 _People, yes. Not_ you, Scorpius thought but didn't say, for the boy was watching him with a curious sort of suspicion. The look on his face was decently calm, almost like he was in a drug-induced trance, but something in his eyes seemed to promise murder.

Then he lit another cigarette, earlier tension cast away so quickly Scorpius wondered if he'd imagined it.

"You'll have to reconsider, Malfoy." He released the smoke in a single, wispy stream. "I understand that some sensations can be difficult to curb. So if you like I shall help you find someone else to" —a smirk— "inflict with these uncontrollable urges."

Scorpius blinked.

"That's not what I—"

"An heiress perhaps. Someone of your caliber: smart, pretty, _charming_ —"

"I like Rose." His stomach was jittering like mad, but he kept his voice light, steady. "I really, really like her. She's an incredibly smart, incredibly pretty, incredibly charming person—and I reckon that's not too much a stretch of the imagination for _you_ either—"

"Irrelevant."

"It's not irrelevant to me."

"Your feelings are based on an exaggerated perception of reality" —an eyeroll— "Rose is _clearly_ average looking at best."

"You have to say that."

"I don't have to say anything."

"Is that right?"

A pause.

For many reasons— the topic was awkward and difficult to navigate. First, they were hardened Slytherin blokes who had spent their boyhood testing every possible way to, as Scorpius thought of it, _fuck shit up._ They lived in the realm of danger and rebellion and secrets and elaborate magical schemes. Girls and girlfriends weren't even worth noting— _not_ that Scorpius had had many during his lifelong acquaintance with the demanding arsehole. Unsurprisingly, Potter himself had held female attention since he turned fourteen, and so much that it had simply become background noise. Dull. Lost in the peripheral.

Then, of course, Potter disliked any bloke who pursued his female cousin. Within this context, Scorpius figured he became just _some bloke. Touch her and I'll hex off your filthy hands_ did not have to be verbally communicated; it was heard loud and clear between the firing of 'stray' spells.

"I'm only trying to help you, Scorp," he said, stiffly. "Anything you think you feel is due to heightened hormones."

"At least I _have_ hormones. Say, Potter, when's the last time you had a good snog?"

Green eyes flashed, making no effort to conceal their outrage at this.

"If you intend to have Rose for a _good snog_ then-"

" _Fucking_ _hell_ , that's _not_ what I meant! I just meant-"

"You can find a million girls to snog. Prettier and more accessible girls," Potter snapped, very blunt now.

"That's not what I—"

"Rose has more to offer the world than kissing abilities."

Scorpius froze and grew uncomfortably silent, for the stone-cold boy was displaying a side not often seen; something he, perhaps, worked well to keep buried beneath his usual anger and scorn. Unsure of how to respond, Scorpius mixed his concoction in quick agitated circles. He waited until Potter had smoked a few and cooled down considerably before attempting conversation again.

"So why the heroin anyway?" he said, prompting a new subject. "Aren't muggle potions supposed to—I dunno— make you thick and dim?"

"It's true that a large dose of heroin can impair concentration, coordination, etcetera. Some say it distorts the mind. However" —Potter paused, his tone taking a dulcet quality— "I've made… _special_ amendments to the recipe."

He turned to Scorpius, with a sly half-smile. "Want to see something?"

The blond could only nod.

Potter drew to full height, strolling over the table with his wand. He picked it up and spun it between careless fingers. Grew bored. _Set it down._

"A large dose can also yield a state of intense relaxation that is impossible even with hours of meditation. A state needed for the mastery of magic that would, otherwise, take me decades to even attempt. See, Malfoy, I simply _do not_ have that kind of time."

His mouth hissed words— _Wingardium Leviosa—_ and Scorpius watched in dismay at his cauldron _lifted into the air,_ as if on its own. The large and magnificent pot stood mid-air, trembling, its blue contents sloshing over the sides. Wandless.

 _"Merlin's pants."_

Potter smirked. "Muggles are clever, aren't they?"

* * *

Chaos. Everywhere.

What had once been deemed civil disobedience had descended to violence. Rioters now blasted down doors to shops, Gringotts, and other large Wizarding establishments.

Why? To prove a point.

Thankfully the Ministry was underground, safe for the moment. Meanwhile, Aurors scoured magical England with the goal of upending any other violence. The protesters were a mix of various anarchist groups, as well as the really pissed off, having united for the simple objective of raising hell.

Rose didn't like mobs and mobs didn't like her, a lesson she'd learned very well from the Diagon Alley massacre. Luckily her comrades were more than comfortable handling the dirty, elbow-rubbing work. More a liability than anything in large crowds, she stayed afloat on broomstick, casting shields and hexes when and where needed: damage control. This kept her out of the frenzied mania and gave her a bird's-eye view of all that was happening.

Twenty Aurors lined the area around Gringotts, compressing the mob and keeping the violence contained. Kovy had had his eye punched in twice. Cynthia had her robes torn by two hysterical women. Meanwhile Florian, along with two burly aurors, shoved and pushed their way to the center of the crowd.

Protesters had nearly dismantled the doors to Gringotts. Rose continued shooting protective shields at the passageway, but it was futile. Every shield she threw was instantaneously countered with six penetration hexes. She was miserably outnumbered. She'd been at this for hours and now her arm was beginning to ache.

A rioter stood atop the front steps, ranting into the mobs of zealous people.

"The Ministry is responsible for the obstruction of safety and justice! Enough is enough! We won't leave until Shacklebolt and his administration agree to step down. They've done nothing but ruin England in the face of the world. They are incapable of defending us any longer! They've endangered our friends and families—"

The man fell. Stunned.

Rose stared in awe as people ran shrieking from the spot.

 _"What the hell?"_ She snapped into her magical comlink. _"We're under orders not to attack civilians unless first provoked."_

 _"He was being annoying. It provoked me,"_ an accented voice muttered—Florian, _"All that obstruction of safety and justice nonsense – just look at the hypocrisy there…what? All right, je suis désolé Capitaine. I'm sorrrryy-"_

 _"Sorry won't mean much when the press catches wind of aurors heedlessly attacking protesters,"_ a feminine voice—Cynthia—retaliated fiercely.

 _"Calm down, Mendoza. I didn't stun him_ that _hard."_

Kovy's voice joined: _"Way to get everyone in trouble, French."_

 _Well,_ so sorry _for doing my job!_

 _It's not your job to-_

 _"Stop arguing you lot,"_ Rose muttered, feeling a headache from it all. " _Mr. Hashimoto, will you contact the Head and inform him of what's happened."_

She cast a wary look down at the flourishing mob.

" _Tell him we'll need reinforcements."_

The Ministry had no reinforcements to send anywhere. Protests all over England had heightened to a startling level of violence.

The Head's orders, which Mr. Hashimoto quoted exactly, were to _'tell Weasley to bloody handle it'._

Rose groaned, throwing another shield to the grand doors of Gringotts.

 _"Did you hear that, Capitaine?"_

 _"Shut up, Dubois."_

" _Do something, then."_ Florian grunted, and Rose watched him hex through a band of irate witches. _"The next woman that pulls my hair, I'm pulling hers back."_

 _"Maybe we should try to talk to them?"_ Cynthia offered. _"Hear them out."_

 _"Are you kidding?"_ Kovy laughed. " _These people don't want to talk. They want to set shit on fire."_

 _"Capitaine,"_ Florian called. _"Try to talk to them."_

 _That'll bloody get her killed!"_ Kovy argued. _"No Rose, don't listen to these idiots. Stay in the air."_

 _"I'm coming down,"_ Rose said.

" _Rose wait-"_

 _"You're needed in the air Rose,"_ Mr. Hashimoto said, sternly _. "It will be impossible to manage the mob once they break through the gates. The situation is progressively worsening all over England. As you know, the largest rioting this morning was outside St. Mungos… I've just received message that they've broken through."_

The comlink crackled in prolonged silence.

Everyone stared up, watching as Rose Weasley's broom shifted directions.

Objectives.

 _"Rose what are you—"_

She flew away.

Somebody had decided to take advantage the chaos. Healers and nurses, stunned, littered sides of the dimmed hallways by magic much _darker_ than that of ordinary protesters. Everything was too still, too quiet, as Rose made her way to Hugo's room. She pushed through his door, heart slamming against her chest.

Bedsheets. Empty.

On the wall was an enigma, large, flame-ravaged into the shape of a crow: prominent like the banner of victory.

Her stomach collapsed.

* * *

Prophet Headlines:

 _St. Mungo's Security Compromised: the Literal Boy-Who-Lived Abducted._

 _Were the Protests Part of a Ploy to Kidnap the Resurrectionist's Brother?_

 _How are the Camden Bombings linked to the Hugo Weasley Kidnapping?_

 _The Ordine Corvis: a Closer Look at the Most Dangerous Crime Cell of the Decade._

 _Rose Weasley Refuses All Interviews, Hides from Public Eye._

 _Daughter of Famed Heroes to the Most Wanted Witch in the World: What is The Resurrectionist Hiding from us?_

* * *

Rose Weasley had abandoned her post and compromised Gringotts security for her own selfish needs, something the Head intended to make _very aware_ to her. She flinched but held her ground at the harsh yelling—public humiliation. Once it was over, she picked up her wounded ego and slipped away. Her unit mates came after her, but their attempts to console her proved futile.

The search for her brother after two mere weeks had hit a wall. With no leads, the department was ready to put it on the backseat and move onto more pressing cases.

Bidding goodbye to the others, Rose headed towards her desk to pack up for the evening. Kovy accompanied her without needing to be asked, not that she ever would. Still, it was the mark of a good friend.

"Don't get disheartened."

"Of course."

"We're going to find him."

"Right."

"You're not alone in this. Everyone's behind you. You know that, don't you?"

"Uh-huh."

It was, by now, clear that she wasn't listening and all the reassurances and support in the world didn't mean a thing to her.

"Rose," he said, observing her expression with caution. "You've worked so hard to get here. Don't ruin it by doing something…rash."

This was the girl who'd _clawed_ her brother from the cold fingers of Death. Who had committed an irrevocable taboo, and struck fear into the hearts of millions. Who'd altered the foundation of Magic Itself.

She returned a smile that didn't reach her eyes. A practiced smile.

A Resurrectionist's smile.

* * *

"We need to do something about this."

"I'm busy." Today, Potter was tearing apples from trees and levitating them onto metal rods he'd stuck into the earth; precision practice; for he had to learn to mentally visualize his targets without the direction of his wand.

Scorpius stared at him.

"Potter," he lowered his voice. "The _Ordine Corvis_ were after you at one point, weren't they? Then out of nowhere they kidnap Hugo, _your_ _cousin_. You don't think that's curious and the slightest bit suspicious?"

"Of course it is," he said, simply, and returned to practicing his wandless enchantments.

"You have theories?"

" _Of course_ , Malfoy."

Scorpius drew an annoyed breath. "Then, why not? Why aren't we looking for him? _Why aren't we doing anything?_ "

"I'm busy."

"This is your cousin, Potter! Your family – doesn't that mean anything?"

The boy didn't answer, taking his time to spin an apple around in the air and transfigure it to- well Scorpius never found out _what_ , for the fruit combusted into mush and slopped to the ground. Potter's jaw twitched, frustration; fingers curled as though craving the feel of his wand. A habit, Scorpius knew, that he was clearly trying to break.

So he fished his pocket for a different addiction. Lit it, and closed his eyes, exhaling strands of smoke.

"Think long and hard about what's happening, Malfoy," he breathed. "Hugo's been kidnapped by one of the most dangerous terrorist cells out there. The most valuable being in the entire country has been taken. The case gains immediate press attention. The obvious deduction to make is that-"

"-they're baiting Weasley-"

"-yes, but doesn't it strike you odd that they would choose to go after Rose only _when_ she's been allotted to the case, when they've never shown any interest in her before? The resurrection spell is valuable but _not valuable enough_ to risk their entire organization. Not to mention, they left their enigma in broad sight at the hospital - there are more ultimately more subtle ways to bait someone. No, these people have higher ambitions than resurrection. They're following in league with the Camden bombings. They're ruthless. They're unafraid. They want _the world_ to know what they can do."

"So what, it's some twisted powerplay with the Ministry?"

Potter pressed his lips, eyes still closed. "They're advertising."

What Albus didn't reveal to Scorpius:

The _Ordine_ Corvis were advertising, but it was very _targeted_ advertising. As they had done with the Camden bombings, these people were again demonstrating their prowess to the world. But while the bombings had been impersonal—the attack on his family was intimate. If they threatened Rose they may as well have been baiting _him_.

Confrontation between him and the man called Graham Paisley was unavoidable; it was only a matter of time. Still, he'd only _just_ cracked wandless magic, and he was _nowhere_ _near_ the skill level he'd like to be. It would take some time before he could do something besides levitate objects. Yet here they were, forcing his attendance. The gauntlet had been cast and cast _too_ _early_ —the risks were too high and unfavorable. Albus was, first and foremost, a young man of calculation. He knew consequences would be dire if he decided to play into this very obvious trap.

But Rose was already packing.

* * *

They left at night, passing from the familiar into the unfamiliar.

Little Norton—only the brave dared to speak its name.

The pavement was damp where all three tread, slippery with slime and filth and the devil-only-knows, for God had long abandoned it. Hollow and vaguely hostile faces watched them from shadows—grey members of a congregation of Death. Tongues hissed obscenities. Bony fingers slipped into stranger pockets. Figures were crooked and angular, starved limbs bustling beneath concealing dark robes. Murderous men. Weeping women. Beaten boys. Grimy girls. All wizards and witches, yet unable to find sanctity and sustenance in the Art.

Only fear.

Rose kept her hood cast low over her face and remained close to the boys. Her eyes were trained ahead. Her practiced hand waited at her wand.

Albus didn't speak with her except to issue orders, and for the most part she was simply meant to follow him without questions. He still hadn't explained to her about how and why he knew so much about the _Ordine_ _Corvis_ , but that was to be expected. Unlike her he had a plan, and she'd have to play along until he decided to indulge her.

Still, he managed to engage _Scorpius_ in discussion, which was strange and unexpected given what had happened between them. The Slytherins walked ahead of her in conversation, discussing plans and ideas to which she was not privy. Abruptly the boys stopped outside a battered building, its outside a faded color of brown.

"Rose will wait out here. Scorpius will accompany me inside."

"Why?" she demanded.

"Do you want to find your brother or not?" Albus countered.

She looked slightly helpless for a moment, but nodded.

For a while the boys conversed amongst themselves, and Rose sat watching her surroundings. England's wizarding community had always bore an older feel to its muggle counterpart, but _this_ —this felt like stepping back in time.

She'd never been in a place so far outside government influence. What little she knew of Little Norton she'd heard over _hush-hush_ conversations between drunken colleagues: it was a place law did not reign. Theft and street violence were staples of everyday life, and murder was mere dinnertime conversation. Most youth did not attend school, instead joined into the various gangs and groups that dominated the dark underbelly of the wizarding world. Werewolves and half-breeds walked freely through streets, bearing the brunt of stigmas. Intermingling between different dominions created reason for further violence. And people _favored_ it, people favored being left to their own devices.

The night was cold and ran an involuntary shiver through Rose, leaving her nose pink. She wrapped her cloak tighter and closed her tired, aching eyes. It was sickening to think that this was the disorder England would fall to without the Ministry. Without order. That in spite of his questionable methods to power, maybe the Head had the right idea in mind. Maybe Kingsley had outlived his purpose. And maybe, _just_ _maybe,_ what England needed now was a firmer hand. A fist.

"Rose."

Opening her eyelids, she found two jackets extended out to her. Scorpius and Albus stood at equal heights, equal lengths, one smiling and the other scowling. Both stared at her expectedly.

She glanced between the jackets, sheepish and confused.

"Not really that cold," a murmur, "Just hurry the hell up."

"Aye Officer." Scorpius grinned, with a playful salute. "We'll be quick, won't be Potter?"

"Of course."

Albus waited until Scorpius was deftly out of sight before tossing his to hers. She caught it and nodded. He smirked, copying the blond's gesture with a sarcastic air. She rolled her eyes. Without a single word, he turned and stalked behind Scorpius into the building.

* * *

Upon entering, Potter latched the door and turned to him.

"Remove your shirt."

Scorpius blinked at the casualness of this demand.

"Really Potter, not even going to buy me dinner first?"

"Remove your shirt," the boy repeated, more irritable than before. He drew his wand and pointed it at the blond. "We're wasting time."

Before Scorpius could demand an explanation—or really just yell—Potter hexed the shirt off. It was a bloody _nice_ shirt too. Scorpius squeezed his eyes, sensing that he had involuntarily become a subject of one of his friend's strange experiments.

But, instead of the anticipated pain, he felt only a faint burning sensation around his bicep. Opening his eyes, he glanced at his tingling flesh.

It was back. That _sodding bird tattoo_ Potter had once supposedly removed for him was back.

Scorpius stared at it, stupefied.

"You said you made it go away," he said, voice drawing in anger. "Oi! You lied!"

A snort. "How perceptive."

"What the fuck Potter?"

"I hid it to make you feel better at the time. I wasn't going to _get rid of it."_ Potter gave a cold laugh that made the blond's heart sink. "Oh no. It's too valuable. You worked _too_ _hard_ to get it for me." He strolled over and placed a hand around the bicep. "Relax, Malfoy. Did you think I would hurt you? When you've proven so useful to me? Certainly not."

"I'm not doing this for _you,_ " Scorpius sneered, yanking his arm away from him. Hurt stung his insides. The fact that his best mate had been _harvesting_ him all this time for some secret plan was almost too much to bear. "I'm doing this for Hugo."

"That's nice Malfoy—now, do you know how the dark mark was used to summon Voldemort?" Potter tilted his head, observing the tattoo keenly. "Did your father ever tell you? Mine did—in great detail as a matter of fact."

The blond squirmed. "They'd touch it with their wands."

Green eyes glinted with unmasked fascination. "Care to demonstrate?"

"Now?"

"Yes."

This was the moment in which it all began to make sense, why Potter had brought them to this lawless place. It was the sort of place anyone could away with anything. Coercion and torture included. Scorpius swallowed, bare shoulders hunched, and pulled out his wand. He looked at his best mate, a cold, ruthless boy he'd never knew _how much_ to trust.

"We're doing this for Hugo. To get him back."

A smirk. "Of course."

"You mean it?"

"You have my word."

Scorpius was still skeptical. "But can you handle these people? I mean...if you summon them, do you know how to fight them?"

"Do you doubt me?"

"No."

"Well then."

Silence.

"But what's in it for you?" he asked quietly.

"Hugo will be fine. Rose will be fine. That's all you need to concern yourself with."

"And what about me? Will I be ok?"

"Have you been anything but?"

The answer was no.

Scorpius considered all these responses, and tried to muster the last shred of faith he had left in Potter. Did he have a plan? Like always- yes. Did he have a secret agenda? Like always-yes. But would he let Scorpius and co. be collateral damage?

 _Hopefully_ not.

Scorpius closed his eyes and touched the tattoo with his wand.

It happened in a daze of seconds. The swirl of wind, the apparition lightning, the collision of bodies to floor, ropes shooting from Potter's bag—when the turmoil-haze dissipated all that was left were two men, bound, roped by the feet like cattle. One was rotund with a large hairy arms and a menacing unshaven face. His companion was smaller, younger looking and thrashed anxiously on the ground.

Scorpius quickly drew on his shirt.

"And who the _fucking_ hell are you two?" The hairy man snarled, struggling against the ropes.

Potter's expression dulled.

"Neither of you are Graham Paisley," he muttered, as if disappointed.

"Wha— _'course not_!" The man gave a vicious chortle. "You think a pair of school boys can summon him as they please? No, you get to deal with _us_."

A spell tightened around the bonds around their ankles. The smaller man yelped as Potter hoisted them both into the air.

"Enough," he said, irritably, staring up at them. "You two still have the opportunity to prove useful yourselves to us and I suggest you take advantage of it."

When the men began yelling obscenities, Potter threw their bodies to the ground in a startling display of violence. He now looked decently annoyed.

"We're looking for the boy named Hugo Weasley. I'm sure you've heard of him. He's a bit famous."

"Po-" Scorpius started but the boy sent him a glare so severe he promptly shut up. Of course. They needed aliases. "Arsehole." Potter raised a slightly humored brow but nonetheless nodded. "Ask them where he's being kept. And how many men are around."

Abiding, Potter lifted their lolling, disorientated heads up. "Wasn't that fun?" He threw them a wicked smile. "Would you like to go again?"

The men furiously shook their heads.

"Then where do we find Hugo Weasley?" Scorpius asked, brow terse.

"A manor. On the other side of town. You can't fucking miss it."

"How many men?"

When the hairy man grew tightlipped, the younger spoke. "Too many," he said, his pinched face fearful, "You'd never get through…it's a sodding army."

"Army," Potter mused, his jaw twitching with contained laughter. "How charming."

"You little _brat."_ The hairy man snarled, "Once Paisley gets ahold of you, we'll see who's laughing—

"Oh I look _forward_ to it."

"Arsehole." Scorpius gave Potter a wary look, and gestured towards the door.

Potter rolled his eyes, lazily flicking his wand. A deafening blow landed on both men's heads and they flopped to the ground, unconscious. Potter levitated their lolling bodies and then, almost as if he'd been doing it all his life, used the rope to tie their bodies to a poll. It was with equal systematic efficiency that he placed coverings over their mouth, ears, and eyes, and bound their wrists together, leaving no chance for escape. At last, he performed his trademark memory charm.

Scorpius stared—Potter was nothing if not thorough.

"So, going after Paisley. That's been your plan all along."

"He's been pursuing me for months. It's time I return the favor."

"Do you even _know_ what you're going to do?"

A pause.

The corners of his mouth twitched in not-quite humor. "I'll think of something won't I?"

This was the moment in which Scorpius figured out something _shattering._

"Let's move," Potter said tersely, sensing this but not looking at the boy, thereby closing the topic.

* * *

A third body awaited the Slytherins when they stepped outside: a large gruff looking man lay face flat on the ground.

Rose sat on the top step, guilty head buried in her hands.

"I told him that I wasn't interested." A sigh. "Politely, of course. Then he made a grab for my bum and I made a grab for my wand and this sort of…happened."

Scorpius stared.

" _Sodding_ _hell_ Weasel, how hard did you stun him?"

"Hard," Albus murmured, lolling the head over with his shoe. He sounded vaguely impressed.

* * *

They began traveling, for the boys now knew where to go. Rose didn't like being kept in the dark about their methods, but she wouldn't press the issue if her brother waited at the end of all the confusion. That he'd gotten caught up in all this only made her angry at herself. Her reputation had undoubtedly endangered him, and these…these _vultures_ sought to take advantage of that. Her sweet, innocent baby brother. It had been _two_ _weeks_. What if they weren't feeding him? Hugo had never lived outside the comfort of other people. He was a soft boy who had always been the center of parents' or healers' attention and the constant object of his sister's affections.

They traversed broken streets and grassy plains, and the pounding in her chest grew. Little lights flickered at distance, and the smell of warm bodies—sticky perfumes and pungent sweat—bombarded them. They made a few quick turns through the bustling market, people shoving past them in a whirlwind of grey robes and darkened hoods. In the midst of it a hand gripped hers. Scorpius. He gave her a soft smile that she didn't know how to return. Albus had taken the leading role, as always, and strolled ahead of them both.

The clouds began to pour. Keeping his pace down twisting leaky alleys of the underbelly of the Wizarding world, they saw the ugliest of humanity. The broken and lost and _hungry_ …drowning in their own filth. Sin occurred in the gap of shadows; men and women indulging each other. Famished slavering jaws, lolling tongues, wet skin sliding skin, violent and infectious and feral in so many ways. Rain couldn't absolve them. The moans of the perpetual night were enough to run a chill through any passer-by.

Amidst the lust-haze a hand, skeletal and sticky, wrapped the skin of her wrist and she twisted herself away, sloshing into a nearby puddle. The crazed man lunged at her but instead froze. A flash of lightning, and Albus was illuminated behind her: glaring, and nightmarish. When he pulled his wand, the other man hissed and slinked back into the darkness. Rose staggered to her feet. Albus wrapped an arm around her and pulled her along.

Turning a sharp corner, they disappeared into another spindly alleyway, their movements cloaked by the blackness of the autumn night. Scorpius caught sight of the manor first—it was easily the largest thing in the whole damn place, though, he claimed, not quite as large as the _Malfoy manor._

They moved, more anxiously than before, the stench of Death readily growing as they neared the manor. Crows collected on passing trees and benches, their leafy wings brandished. The stalkers rattled their dark awny petals at the trio, squawking and squeaking and _screeching_ —

 _Stop._

The warning mattered little to Rose, who was ready to plow through a million of the like or die trying. Whatever it took to save her brother.

They discussed the plan for infiltration beneath green-canopied cover, during which Rose threw up into bushes, and Scorpius ran fidgety fingers through his hair, and Albus smoked fervently. No one discussed the bodies they'd seen, or the further carnage they might yet encounter. It was too much too fast. Albus cast a shield over their location, allowing them to rest for a bit. Though no one slept. Rose forced herself to eat _something_. Later, it was decided that Scorpius would remain outside and devise the port-key for a quick escape. Meanwhile, she and Albus would slash their way in and procure Hugo. That they were dealing with an armada was no great shock to either wizard; they were brutally conditioned for it. With all her fears already laid out in front of her, Rose felt empty. The only thing left on her mind was Hugo.

They waited until the next night to give them cover, and drew closer to the manor. Then, they were sprinting across the yard. Heads peeked way and spell met spell. Rose stunned one guard, then watched as Albus delivered a vicious green blow to another. _Avada Kedavra._

He caught the stricken look on her face.

"Any problems?" He said icily. He blasted open the front gate and moved inside. Rose followed close behind, her mouth dry and her head spinning.

Of course. There was no point in playing by preconceived rules. Their lives were on the line— _Hugo's_ life was on the line.

Countless bodies bobbed in the corridor and Albus threw a wave of red, immersing them in smoke-camouflage. A hex torpedoed through the haze, throwing Rose backwards. She quickly sprang to her feet and advanced, moving more slowly this time. She cast _Incarcerous_ binding one man while another threw a spell over her head flecking her hair. Rebounded with a lethal stream of silver.

Another spell zipped by her face. Her cheek drew blood.

Albus stood in the exact same position as before, cutting through hexes with leisure and ease. For the first time, Rose was _glad_ her cousin was so good. She took advantage of his position—decoy—and fired _Bombarda Maxima_. Men scattered back like flies. They moved through the hallway and up the stairs.

The second floor—darkened, grimy, their narrow path twisted like serpents. Rose was glad she couldn't see the faces of her attackers; it dehumanized them, made them easier to attack. She didn't know what was worse, how easily she was able to drop her morals or how _little_ she cared for them. Now. Instead there were moments of relief at dodging quick blows, and moments of thrill at delivering them. Adrenaline surged through her veins as she and her cousin dueled together: as a single-functioning system. For mere magical seconds, Rose almost felt how Albus must've _always_ felt.

The prowess of magic was truly unfathomable.

They heard faint alarms go off in the distance. Her heart hammered in her chest when six men emerged in the darkness. They kept coming in waves. She slid past Albus in the narrow corridor, squatted, and aimed a spell that ruptured their Achilles tendons. Injured, they fell simultaneously. _A desperate move for desperate circumstances,_ the Head called it.

Albus complemented her magic by unleashing rays of daggers on the next wave, piercing through their chests. Dead. Within seconds.

She ignored the bile rising in her throat, the pinprick of tears, and tried to focus on finding Hugo. Yes. Hugo.

"Hugo!" she called.

Squinting eyes met darkness. Shadows contorted in a kaleidoscope of shapes; it was a maze of clownish horror. Her neck kept snapping backwards as if to check for stalkers. Sensing this paranoia, Albus placed a firm and steadying hand on the small of her back. She walked beside him as close as possible, unable to keep herself from shaking.

"Hugo!" she called again.

At last.

A response.

Her heart racing, she tore through the hallway. Albus followed close behind, wand gripped in hand.

Tearing through door after door in the hellish manor, she followed the sound of his voice. Then, _the_ door. She blasted it open to find bars. Behind was her brother, frail and bruised. He was curled up on the frozen floor, skinny arms coiled around his bare, freshly-scarred torso. _Skeletal_.

"Rose," His voice was a rasp—vocal cords frayed too thin from screaming. "Rose."

Albus helped her burn through the metal bars—she dashed inside. Lifting his skinny body into her arms, she sobbed happily as she planted kisses over his grimy, filthy face. "It's me, Hugo. I'm here. You're safe."

"Hi," he croaked, trying to smile at her; his voice was so faint it broke her heart. A fresh, bloodied gash ran across his left eye.

They had done worse than starve him. They had _tortured_ him.


	19. Descend pt 2

There was a man in the world who was _not_ a man, who'd grown restless waiting for history to repeat itself. He was an Observer, and while it wasn't often he left that role and intervened with the fates of lowlifes...

Today would be an exception.

— _the blackness of a cloak flickered past the doorway, the grand and hollow chambers, and the human neck twisted up from its reading. Paranoid eyes scoured candlelit quarters. One hand sat at hip, trained for its wand—_

Graham Paisley. A name England feared, for a reason as simple and _stupid_ as fearing the shadows. Characterized by the crimes of his animagi society; indeed, there was no man in this generation closer both to blowing the Statute of Secrecy, and dooming the wizarding world to unprecedented chaos. Both sadist and sociopath, and _renowned_ for it; the human enjoyed the infamy his power wrought him Too Much.

— _Sharp click-clacks sounded across the lacquered floor; a staccato all too familiar. It was trapped in the recesses of his Off-key mind, from their last encounter. The manifest of fantastical magic, of dreams and toys and wishes fulfilled, of the unspoken, of the Unseen…. of fury, of fear; it was the Nightmare of nightmares_ —

The stories about the Ordine Corvis were half-true, and half the maneuvering of cleverly propagated rumors. To the untrained eye, they were nothing more than some anarchist cell bent on upending government rule. Straggler Death Eaters from That Last War, who'd banded together and formed some copycat society au lieu of the deceased Dark Lord, continuing his quest for power.

This was not the case.

Tom's quest for power had been a solitary one, and loyalty rarely lasts Beyond One's Passing. The clever half-blood; he'd seduced the world with his words and charm, with his promise of magical purification, which was hardly a new one, and had never been his _true_ goal. What he had truly desired was domination, and utter annihilation, and with that an ascension of his human form into the _god-like_. The quest for immortality had been made by many Great and Terrible Wizards time and time again… and he had nearly achieved it.

Until Harry came along. As the way things went.

— _Several moments passed in silence, in dreadful anticipation for what came next_ —

So who were the Ordine Corvis? Certainly not Tom-worshippers. No, they were masqueraders, illusionists. They _thrived_ off media attention, the wary newspaper headlines; the ministry response to their bloodthirsty crimes fed their ever-growing reputation as a dangerous enigma …and therein lied the secret to their success. Power wrought from smoke and mirrors.

After all, the world needed its villains.

Yet they were resourceful, fully functional. A microgasm of steadily growing criminals, structured by hierarchy, in which those most accomplished in magic became crow animagi and served that human Graham Paisley directly. Below them came the everyman, the common criminal who took the hits and the filled Azkaban slots. He served his function; kept the aurors busy, made them feel like what they were doing mattered. When really all it took was a bombing or two, some thousand muggle casualties, to reduce them to the _infants_ they really were.

In this way, Graham Paisley was a better politician than the Minister of Magic had ever been. With a well-timed magical disaster, he could sway public perception, alter the entire political landscape.

Move toward a New World Order.

— _Long waxwork fingers trailed across his skull, pawing the yellow hair as it would an infant's, leaving lingering traces of cold. He—the human- raised its head, painfully summoned. Eyes, black and dead gazed back, piercing though his still-living soul to the depth of a wound. A hollow._

 _"Cygnus," He breathed in reverence, rising to his feet._

 _At the sound of the false name, a licentious smile curved across the creature's lips—_

So who was Graham Paisley, and what did he want really? No-one, and nothing. He was an idea, picked up in the anguished rubble of That Last War. The common cliché of a Good Man who did Bad Things for a cause, and found later he rather liked doing them. A man with a backstory no one cared for and didn't matter; when it came to it.

At his core, Graham Paisley was a man; human and easily frightened. Short blond hair, greying at sides, and stocky figure. Whiskers edged his malformed upper lip, framing the cleft smile that evoke dark mental instability and a feverish Something Else. His face beheld the mark of Cain, which could not be vindicated by the blood he had spilled. And _how much blood_ he had spilled.

 _"Hello, Graham." The voice intonated. Low and hypnotic, it was like the chiming of funeral bells._

 _Graham feigned a glib smile, in some effort to mask his growing tension. "I wasn't expecting a visit from you today. Is something the matter, old friend?"_

 _"Yes."_

 _He grunted, wanting to look anywhere but at the dead, black eyes boring into his._

 _"The boy you seek, the one you wish to collect. You will not kill him will you? Like the others."_

 _"Beg pardon," Graham smoothed his shirt prim and proper, with quivering hands. "I am good but also very messy." He continued, speaking in tones of deceptive airiness which hid a tremor of Something Else. "Sometimes murder cannot be helped, Cygnus. If he refuses to cooperate, my temper may very well get the best of me. I cannot guarantee that blood will not be spilled by the end of this."_

 _Long spidery fingers blossomed out as if a budding carnation. And the petite human knew they demanded word of a Vow._

 _His mouth became sawdust. "Do you think I kill in jest? Oh no, no, no, no." Panic edged his tone. "Oh no, I mean only to keep him, Cygnus. I'll keep him with the living ones. Promise. He'll be a pet. My little monkey. You see, there is no need for the Unbreakable-"_

 _The creature unfurled, rising to full height, its ivory flesh glowing in the sickle-moon that rose beyond the window. A looming leer, as the silhouette swooped near; consuming. And there was no screaming. Not really. But swallowed noise, swallowed resolve. A quiet suffocation._

(Graham Paisley was a man; human and disposable.)

 _In the clinging doom, the human fell to his knees._

 _"My apologies." A gasp. "I will do as you ask."_

* * *

Hugo was gaunt, sallow skinned, and _freezing_.

She removed her sweater and yanked it over his head, covering his torso, the morbid remainder of the lacerations he's suffered in her absence.

"We need to leave." Albus spoke from behind.

"A few minutes."

"We don't _have_ —"

"Look, he's barely conscious." She snapped. "Let me just give him something for energy."

Her defiance was met with an annoyed pause. "Quickly then." Albus conceded, tossing his bag to her. Rose worked fast. She had the potion out and a spoon shoved into Hugo's mouth before he could react. The boy swallowed as if by instinct, grimacing at the god-awful taste, and Rose was glad to see color flit his features. " _Eurgghh_."

"Don't you dare spit," She ordered.

"Rose it tastes like _shi_ —"

She cut him off by pressing his body to hers, until he stopped shivering, and until the anxious pounding of her heart calmed. She kissed the top of his greasy head. Twice. _Thrice_. When her fingertips encountered the sharp grooves of his vertebrae, she nearly gasped: he was _skeletal_. She could only imagine the abuse he'd endured these past few weeks. Because of her. Her insides squirmed with anger. Fucking crows. _Monsters_.

"Time to go." Albus' voice tore through her thoughts. Before she knew it, Hugo was being lifted away from her—she fought the compulsion to cling—and into his less loving, much stronger arms.

 _"Oi!"_

"Easy." She heard herself croak. "He's fragile."

He tilted his head toward the boy, who was, now, angrily thrashing and squirming in his hold. "Is that true? Are you fragile?"

Sunken blue eyes glared back. "Put me down, _you tosser._ "

"Can't. Unfortunately you're a bit useless and crippled right now. Maybe once you're better, I'll start listening to you."

"Rose!"

"It's all right, Hugo. You can't walk right now. Once we're out—"

"I can _too_ walk!"

 _"Hugo."_

Hugo closed his eyes, head falling against the cousin's shoulder in exhaustion. Too weak for rebuttal.

* * *

Head reverberated with pain. Vision was fuzzy, sounds distant and faint. Body was a mound of tender flesh and organs, insides jostling with every hurried step his carrier took, stupidly sensitive to every bump. Spaghetti arms hung to Albus' neck, though Hugo likely would've slipped through had the older boy not been holding him in place. A sharp stop made his disoriented head yank up, and before he knew it, he was being put down. _Are we out?_

The surrounding darkness told him no.

Blood suddenly rushing away from his head, Hugo stumbled a little before his sister's hands grabbed his shoulders and held him in place. She stood behind him. He felt Albus' tall presence at his side, hand extending over his scrawny chest as if to halt. Both figures were curiously silent.

Hugo squinted, doubled vision slowly focusing on the bodies standing ahead of them. Two of the men he recognized immediately: Igor and Astrex. Igor was a skinny man with a crow tattoo on his bald head, who compensated for his small size by being exceptionally cruel in his punishments; taking away food and bathroom privileges. Astrex, his larger, much uglier tool, had liked to throw stinging hexes at Hugo whenever he showed cheek.

The next person that caught Hugo's eye was a woman. He had seen her come by the manor many times to check up on him, presumably, for some higher power. Full lips, curvy body, tattoos covering the length of her arms; his initial opinion of her was that she was attractive— _very attractive_ —but the boyish fancy had faded upon her treating him with the same mocking cruelty as the others. Hugo felt himself take an uneven step back, into his sister, whose grip on his shoulder tightened as if she could sense his fear.

"Get out of our way," Rose ordered, and Hugo was surprised by her sudden surge of nerve.

"Get out of our way," the woman mimicked. The others laughed harshly.

This riled Rose. She reached for her wand as per instinct—hexed out of her hands. She lunged forward.

"Oh no you don't."

Shot down.

"And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the _Ressurectionist_."

More harsh laughter. Hugo moved with the intention to go after his fallen sister, but Albus had gripped his arm. "Let her handle it," he murmured.

Rose moved quickly. On her rear, she elbowed her way backwards, narrowly dodging the woman's hexes until she was able to stand. On her feet, she lunged forward bent on stealing the woman's wand, who grabbed her by the arm and hurtled her backwards. "You bitch!"

His sister steadied herself, and lunged in with her right hook. To the jaw, _hard._

Hugo winced.

Rose was efficient, snatching the wand from shocked fingers and stepping backwards. She aimed it at the woman.

"Stay the fuck away from my brother." She hissed, breathing hard. "I saw what you lot did to him." With a fierceness, her eyes scoured the others in the room. "If any of you _ever_ come near him again I'll—"

"You'll what?" Igor prompted, stepping forward with a lofty grin. "You think we're intimidated by a little thing like you? No, love."

The woman wiped blood off her jaw, breathing hard. She eyed Rose indelicately. "You know you're not nearly as impressive as they make you out to be. Not nearly as impressive as _him_."

A pause.

 _What does that_ …the thought trailed off, for Rose noticed the attention was no longer on her. Heads had swiveled towards Albus who'd been a bit too reserved up till now.

"Hello," The woman purred, slinking toward the boys. Hugo looked like he wanted to run away, but Albus held him in place. "It seems we meet again, green eyes. Remember me?"

Albus did not blink.

"No."

"Oh _sure_ you do, darling. We had a nice lovely chat some few weeks ago. You blasted me out of a tree, ignored me when I asked your name, stepped on my arm… left a rather nasty bruise, you know?" She stood very close, close enough to touch him; his brows raised slightly at her hand lifting to palm his cheek.

"He said he doesn't remember you," Rose snapped, before she could stop herself. "Leave him alone."

The woman glanced carelessly back at her. "This hasn't anything to do with you, little girl." She turned back to Albus. "A bit possessive, isn't she? I guess you must like that sort of thing."

At the insinuation, Rose felt a burning inside her skin. She opened her mouth in outraged fashion, but before she could get a word out, Albus sent her one of his halting stares.

He turned back to the woman. "So Paisley thinks we're…" The corners of his mouth twitched. "Why?"

"The living together gave it away, darling."

Rose blinked: the _Ordine Corvis_ had been spying on them?

Albus didn't look surprised by the revelation. "Is that why he chose to bait me with her brother?"

"You certainly were quick to come to the rescue." The woman pointed out, grinning.

His eyes flashed in silent laughter. "Brilliant."

"What do you mean, bait _him_?" Rose demanded, feeling incredibly out of the loop. "What would Graham Paisley want with him? _What's going on here_?"

Once more the woman ignored her, not taking her eyes off Albus. "Paisley figured you'd come running when you found out what we had. If we _impressed_ you. He figured you were after the secret to resurrection. Hmm… guess you managed to get close to the little lady without our help."

"Yes, we're… _very_ close."

Rose shot him the filthiest glare imaginable.

"So then Paisley figured he might as well bait two lovebirds with the same worm." One of the other men chortled, unaware of the irony now that Albus was playing along. He paused to cast Hugo a steely look and elicit a whimper, before focusing back on the older boy. "See, green-eyes, unlike you the boss thinks his plans through. Course, if you surrender _now_ …"

Albus smirked coldly, hand traveling to the back of the small boy's head and fingers drumming against his scalp at an angle only visible to Rose. A finger moved across the scalp, spelling out letters that her brother would feel.

 _O…n…m…y…s…i—_

Both siblings watched his eyes gesture upwards before returning to the woman in front of them. "Look…"

"It's Rachel." She said, with a broad grin.

Albus didn't bat an eyelid.

"I've already declined Paisley's offer once," he replied, hand now gripping Hugo at the collar and making hairs raise on the terrified boy's neck. "His methods of convincing me so far have been very insufficient… it seems a bit pointless to keep trying. Also, if he pursues my companions again I _will_ kill him"

"Oh I'm sure he'll be delighted to hear that!" Rachel said excitedly. "He's been aching to see your magic for quite a while. Wants to exchange trade secrets see."

A pause.

"Ahh, see I've got your attention now haven't I?"

"Go on," Albus said, brow narrowing.

"Afraid you'll have to come with me for the rest of the story, darling. It's for private ears."

Albus eyed the woman up and down, jaw twitching with annoyance. She was testing his patience, being vague about all the important relevant things. It was, of course, no surprise that they had been spying on him for quite some time. And while it was mildly amusing to find that Paisley thought he and Rose intimate—rather than people who incidentally or, in Rose's case, _begrudgingly_ shared living space—Albus couldn't discern what he might possibly want from him. From the looks of it, they did not know he was her cousin; or that he was Harry Potter's son. So why the interest in him? What trade secrets did he possess? And what was the purpose of these insufferable bait tactics? Albus felt neither enthralled nor seduced by all the morbid aesthetics presented to him. In fact, he wanted nothing more than to kill everyone in the room.

Knuckles tightened around wand.

"Leave it." Rose warned, as if sensing these thoughts.

Momentary annoyance flickered over his features, but he glanced at the small shivering boy beside him, then at the slender fingers suddenly grasping his wrist, pressing against his erratic pulse.

Their eyes met and held for the fraction of a second; the message was exchanged.

"Fine."

"Now!"

It happened too quickly for Hugo to process. Rose shot a beam of red upwards, while Albus grabbed hold of him and ducked. Hexes shot over their heads. Debris rained down in large tufts and there was a clamor of frenzied movements. Astrex lunged for Hugo, only to be stunned in his tracks by his cousin. Hugo didn't have time to gloat properly, as they were moving then; Albus gripped him by the torso and made a mad dash. The small boy hung on for dear life as they flew down the hallway. Then Albus stopped, ducking them behind the staircase. "Where's—" The older boy pressed a hand over his mouth, shaking his head, and pulled a wand. He peeked over the crumbling stairway before ducking down again. " _Shit_ ," he hissed. "At least a dozen. We won't get out in time."

In time.

Realization hit. Rose had collapsed the ceiling.

 _"What!?"_

This was followed by the loud crashing sound of the chandelier—glass shards flew everywhere. Shrieks rang out in the chaos.

There was no time for running. Albus threw him to the ground, covering his body with his own, and conjured a shield over them both.

The manor crumbled around them.

* * *

Rose slowed from her sprint, gasping, a hideous realization washing over her.

She hadn't seen them leave.

Shit. _Shit._ They were still inside!

"Weasel!" Scorpius came running up to her. "What happened?"

* * *

First and foremost, Albus was a young man of calculation.

He knew full well just how _skewed_ the odds were for him.

He wasn't ready for it, not even remotely, but this didn't mean he was afraid. But neither was he courageous. James was courageous; as was Rose. Likewise, both were foolhardy with sentiment and prone to excessive heroic fits. Albus, on the hand, was intrinsically wired for his own preservation and simply _refused_ to fear. Such a needless emotion would not help him, now.

He knew far less about Graham Paisley than he would've liked, and it was beginning to irk him.

1\. Certainly, the man was persistent.

2\. And he was in the possession of unfathomable magic—the Camden Bombings, magic fashioned in the way of muggle weapons and made to rain from the sky like hail [Albus distantly wondered how much _energy_ that would have taken].

3\. Furthermore, he was _unbelievably_ arrogant: kidnapping the Ressurectionist's brother and donning a giant banner to show the world what he could do.

And it was no threat. It was an _invitation._

Sure enough, a dangerous game to play. Paisley was either a complete genius or a total idiot, goading the dark underbelly of England to his very doorsteps with the _false_ promise of resurrection [For the true method he would need Rose, not Hugo. The boy had just been an easier target]. Crime cells, anarchist groups, curious young wizards, the authorities— _everyone_ would come. Albus refused to believe he was the only one in England who sought powerful magic.

But if Paisley did not care for resurrection, if the kidnapping was indeed a _ploy_ as Albus had initially assumed, then he had to wonder…what was the man after?

* * *

Hugo had never been close to any of his cousins, _least_ of all the one that was carrying him at the moment.

He'd been sickly and homeschooled all his life and only ever seen extended family on holidays—even that from a bedridden distance. Therefore, everything he knew about the middle Potter was hearsay: a loner, a recluse, a _freak_. He was a bully. He was a rather scary bloke. And he was _constantly_ winding Rose up.

Hugo couldn't understand at all why his sister was _trusting_ him.

But then, Hugo didn't understand much of what was happening at the moment, or why people were chasing him and Albus through the depth of trees behind the now-demolished manor.

"Putmedownputme _dowwwn_."

A hex flew by his left cheek, and he yelped, quickly burying his face into the cousin's shoulder. "Just kidding..."

"Hold up your head." Albus spoke through quick breaths, staggering as he slowed to grip the trunk of a tree. "Tell me everything you see. I'll tell you what to do. Wand's in my back pocket."

"But—"

"Do as I say!"

Startled by his carrier's harshness, Hugo lifted his head, trying to make out the figure approaching in the distance.

"I see…two blokes. They're fast…and huge. They could bloody eat us."

"Fantastic," Albus said, breathing thickly. "You know your essential hexes, don't you? Petrify them."

Hugo swallowed a whimper. "I don't know how to do that."

"Fine. Stun them."

"Don't know that either."

"Disarm them. You know how to _disarm_ , don't you?"

Silence.

He heard the older boy give an annoyed groan.

A spell shot over their heads and Hugo heard himself give an embarrassing squeak. Albus ducked. He slipped behind a tree, dropped Hugo to the ground like dead weight, and whipped around with his wand, glaring. Then he was gone.

Hugo didn't see it happen, instead heard the crackle- _whoosh_ of a spell. Two bodily thuds. His insides filled with alarm. Goosebumps erupted on his flesh in terror.

Albus returned a mere seconds later, breathing heavily, and Hugo was shaking.

"You killed them?"

Not an accusation, but an inquiry. An innocent one.

He shied away when Albus attempted to lift him again.

"They would have killed us."

"I want Rose."

Hugo couldn't help the tears leaking from his eyes. He was scared; he was upset. And it was really embarrassing for a bloke to cry in front of another bloke too. The only person he ever cried in front of was Rose, and that was only because she was his ruddy _sister_.

* * *

Meanwhile Albus stared blankly, pondering the conundrum: he had no clue where the boy could summon energy to cry at such an inconvenient time. It was childish and annoying, though, he supposed, not _entirely_ inexcusable. Undoubtedly, the result of sudden exposure to fresh air after weeks spent in a dark, locked room.

The boy was easily the most pathetic thing he'd ever seen.

More than his smallness, his features were to blame. The soft childlike face, coupled with a weak chin and permanently startled looking eyes, Hugo looked twelve—more like _ten_ — when he should've looked fifteen. He was a fragment of a real boy, a waif, paper-thin.

A mind trapped in a body.

Hugo had been weak and scrawny for as long as Albus could remember, but the fact he still resembled a prepubescent… had the resurrection stunted his growth? It seemed that he'd hadn't had any noticeable growth at all in the past three years. Perhaps, a consequence of the dark magic. Had Rose known about this going in?

Albus supposed he must've looked just as pathetic when he was ten. For a split second he saw the strange resemblance, not to her but to _himself_ ¬—they were cousins after all—his miniature self huddled away in the corner of his room after a particularly gruesome training session. He saw it all in the boys' eyes, the blues and greens meshing together. Then, he saw his father come into the room— _what's the matter, Albus?_ —and sit beside him. Oftentimes Harry would talk of techniques for improvement, soothing him with the magical jargon. Other times, he would say nothing, simply place a hand on his head and sit beside him for very long time.

And so Albus felt compelled to do the same; he sat down beside the small boy. It was awkward at first, but a relief for his own aching legs, and Hugo didn't scoot away though the desire was clearly there. They were stuck in each other's company for the time being.

Reluctantly, Albus placed a hand on his head.

* * *

Rose and Scorpius hid ducked behind a naked goblin statue, as Paisley's men scoured the yard. They whispered fiercely at each other.

"Did you know about this?"

"Weasel—"

"I asked you a question," she hissed at him. "Did you know they were after Albus? And did you go along with his ploy to keep me in the dark about it? _Yes or no_?"

"Yes. I mean, sort of," he stammered. "But not really."

"What does that even _mean_?"

"I mean I figured they were after him but I didn't…I wasn't sure. I don't know _why_ they are. You know Potter never tells anyone the whole story." he said lamely, his eyes on the torn sleeve of her jacket. _Potter's_ jacket. "Is your arm ok?"

"It's fine." She said, not meeting his eyes. "I look much better than the other woman, trust me."

"Yeah? Why's that?"

"I punched her."

Scorpius deadpanned. "Damn." He chortled. "Wish I'd been there to see it. Weasel the barbarian."

"Piss off."

"Oi, just cause you're pissed at Potter, don't get snippy at _me_."

They grew silent for a moment as the clamoring of figures approaching grew.

"Sorry," she sighed, once they had passed. "I just don't understand why he told you about all this and not me."

"Maybe he didn't want to worry you."

"Or he thought it was none of my business," she said bitterly.

Scorpius sighed. "Look, Weasel. There's no point getting pissy about it now. Just calm down—"

"Don't tell me to calm down." She snapped, standing a little in their small cramped space. "I had a right to know, Malfoy. It's my life. It's _my brother's_ life. I don't know what Albus is up to, but if anything happens to _Hugo_ —"

"Weasel—"

"He always lying! He's always keeping secrets—"

"Weasel—"

"I'm the only sodding family he's got and he doesn't even trust me to—"

"Rose Weasley, get down," he hissed urgently.

"Don't tell me to—"

Groaning, Scorpius grabbed her and pulled her down beside him as figures passed overhead. He cupped his hand over her mouth, straining to listen in to the conversation happening overhead.

* * *

Hugo was drowning. Sinking. Slowly, slowly down. Somewhere in the blackness beyond his bleary sight, he heard voices—his mum and dad. He liked to think he had some telepathic connection to the dead, that he could hear them whenever he was alone. For whenever Hugo envisioned his own death, he imagined them waiting for him _with open arms_ …

He woke up to the haze of smoke and a familiar throbbing in his stomach. Fire crackled nearby, and trees blurred out around him in all directions. He found himself clad in Rose's sweater, and, now, a pullover that smelled faintly of cigarettes. Bundled so thickly, he felt like a fluffed hen…or a pygmy puff.

"Hungry?" said a voice. He turned to find Albus sitting beside him, small cauldron in his lap, bowl of something steaming extended out to him.

Too stunned for words, he could only take the bowl.

It was oatmeal, bland and boring and nutritious …and the most delicious thing Hugo felt he'd ever had. He anxiously stuffed bites into his mouth, his eyes watering with relief.

"Slowly, or you'll throw up."

Hugo swallowed, and groaned, trying to obey. It was difficult, when all he'd had for weeks was watery soup. Any eating etiquette his mother had drilled into him had been gladly cast away in favor of stuffing himself with _glorious food_.

Several rabid mouthfuls later, he noticed the cousin watching him curiously.

"What?" He said, wiping his chin with his sleeve.

Albus turned back to his potion. "You're….very small. Smaller than I expected."

"Err, thanks." He swallowed hard. The oatmeal burned going down his throat, and he coughed. "So where are—"

"The spot Rose, Scorpius, and I designated to meet in case things didn't go exactly according as planned. I considered apparation, but it's unlikely your injuries would sustain the trip. I anticipate they're making their way here as we speak. You will be reunited with your sister very soon so there's no point in whining about it. In the meantime I recommend you focus on recovering your health." Albus said in one breath, staring into the depths of his cauldron.

"Oh." was all Hugo could say. "Well ok."

It became apparent that the older boy didn't really know what to do with him, for there wasn't much conversation after that. Hugo tried to eat slowly, watching as Albus conjured up tents and set up camp around them with a few lazy flicks. After that, he resumed work on some curious potion; Hugo was a bit confounded by how he managed to have potion equipment — _a cauldron much less_ —on him at such a time. He resisted the urge to ask for fear of sounding annoying. The frightening cousin had not done anything exceptionally cruel or painful to him thus far, and Hugo wanted to keep it that way.

"You don't know your essential hexes."

Hugo looked up, summoned from his thoughts.

Albus cleared his throat sharply. Hugo watched him remove his working apron. "I'm inclined to believe that either you're stupid or no one's ever bothered to teach you."

"I'm _not_ stupid."

"Very well." Albus tossed his wand to him. Hugo caught it and stared.

"Hex me."

"What?"

"Show me what you can do," the older boy said irritably, pacing over to him. "While Rose appears to have spoiled and coddled you, she's neglected to teach you the very essentials of being a wizard."

"Oi, lay off with the insults." Hugo piped up, despite the growing dizzying pain in his stomach. "She's done a lot for me. You don't even _know_ how much she's done."

Albus' eyes flicked over him as if scrutinizing every inch of his demeanor. "A wizard that chooses to live like a squib, that chooses to rely solely on others for protection is pathetic."

"I'm _not_ a squib."

Whether his face flushed from anger or embarrassment, Hugo didn't know. He levelled the wand and squinted, trying to focus his vision ahead. His sides ached. He still felt dizzy but the burning need to save his pride overcame the physical discomfort. Then, an enchantment: sparks flew across the field lighting grass onto flame.

A smug smile curved on his face at the accomplishment, as he turned back to Albus.

The older boy watched with raised brows. "Good," he murmured. "Now show me more."

* * *

Walking side by side, Rose and Scorpius cut through the forest, a fragment of the conversation they'd overhead playing in their minds.

 _"I'm copping the fuck out of 'ere tomorrow. What about you?" One voice had said._

 _"You lucky bastard." The other had chortled. "I'm bloody well stuck till it's all done with."_

 _"Oh yea, why?"_

 _"Well Paisley's gonna need men on the inside too. Crowd control. Wouldn't work otherwise."_

They'd stared at each other, wide-eyed. _What_ wouldn't work otherwise?

As they walked, Scorpius banged away at their port key, which was an ordinary goblet he'd nicked from home – those sodding elves wouldn't miss it – and enchanted to transport them back to London when needed. It had been functional _earlier_ but now wouldn't light properly, which was making him anxious.

Rose cast over a nervous look.

"We can always apparate, if it comes to it." He assured her.

The crinkle in her brow remained. "Won't be the best choice with Hugo. And it's much easier to track someone's apparation stream."

Scorpius sighed, continuing to fumble around with the port key. The sooner he got it working, the quicker he figured they could get out of there.

"Potter doesn't have a plan," he murmured, then paused to take in her stunned expression. "I was surprised too when he told me." _I'll think of something won't I?_ "I think he's expecting himself to figure one out before Paisley gets to him."

Rose deadpanned, and Scorpius didn't blame her. Potter didn't take blind risks, or leave things up to chance, or pick fights where victory wasn't assured….this didn't sound like him at all. Why would he even come if he wasn't ready?

She stood silent, alarmed, for several moments. Then she looked at him. "Just get that port key working, Malfoy."

"Of course _Officer._ "

She bristled a little. "I'm your friend, Malfoy. Not your boss."

"Bossy," he teased. He nudged her in jest, but Rose quickly paced ahead, ignoring him.

Clearly, she wasn't in the mood for jokes.

* * *

The Ordine Corvis had been stalking his activities since his lapse in little Norton but not because they thought he was Albus _Potter_. No, as far as the world was concerned, The Chosen One was dead and the rest of the Potters had moved to France. And as for the middle Potter… he must've disappeared right after Hogwarts. He ran away, and died in the back of some alley starved and wandless and _pathetic_. Albus wouldn't put it past James to tell the people that, and no doubt little Lily would believe him. And maybe that was the fate his mother wanted for him when she snapped his fucking wand, reducing him to nothing. [But there was no point in thinking about it now. About them. It didn't matter. He would be emancipated from the crutch of his wand soon enough].

Right now, all that mattered now was figuring out what to do. It just so happened that Graham Paisley had not yet met him face to face, avoided it, consciously perhaps, implying a lack of confidence.

Just how well would he fare in a duel? Albus intended to find out.

Paisley hid in the midst of his organization, in the _shadow_ of his Crows. He was too comfortable playing ring leader and underestimated Albus—who he thought to be just another young wizard. But then why….

 _He's been aching to see your magic for quite a while. Wants to exchange trade secrets see._

They'd been stalking his activities since his... _actions_ in little Norton. So could that mean… the fact they'd lured him right back here…could that _mean_ —

Of course… it made perfect sense.

* * *

Hugo had fever. Hugo had pains. Hugo was puking; _puking_.

It was no surprise that his health had regressed in captivity, but he wanted to cry at how much of his progress from the past two years had been lost. He could hardly stand up by himself without getting dizzy, let alone walk, and it shamed him so much that all he wanted to do was curl up in his warm bed and sleep it away. In addition, he wanted to eat his favorite treacle tart and watch a good match on the wireless.

These things were impossible at the current moment.

After he ended up puking all over himself, Albus had to strip him and wipe his body down with a wet rag— _bathe him_ — and Hugo cringed the whole time. It would've been ok if it was Rose; they were siblings and had been through thick and thin, but he barely _knew_ Albus. Not to mention the whole thing had the potential to seem alarmingly homoerotic (for which the teenage boy was grateful no one was around). His face burned as he stared down at his spindly, hairless legs. He wasn't some child, even if he looked it, and he didn't want the older boy to think even less of him than he already probably did.

"I'm not very practiced at healing potions," Albus commented, holding up his skinny arm and cleaning it with the rag. "But I'll see what I can do about the fever. Give me a few hours."

Hugo was too sheepish to meet the older boy's gaze. A croak. "Hurts."

"Hurts? What hurts?"

"My…lowers," the small boy said finally, shamefully, cheeks bright. "Pissing…blood. Dunno why."

He looked up to find Albus staring at him in blank astonishment.

"Very well," The boy replied, with a careful tone. "I'll have to consult…a few reference books for that. Your health is…exceptionally poor."

For the second time, Hugo felt tears prick his eyes. He wiped his eyes on his other arm, trying very ineffectively to keep the older boy from seeing.

"So am I dying or something then?" He asked thickly. "Don't dress it up. Tell me the truth."

A moment passed.

"It's possible," Albus replied.

"Will it hurt?"

"I would expect so."

"Can you give me something for the pain…when it happens?"

Albus didn't respond. He had already dropped Hugo's arm and was walking away. Hugo felt a sinking in his heart. The lack of answer conveyed a lack of interest, and he felt it had been maybe too much to hope that the cold cousin cared – even a little – for him.

Many hours passed in silence, and in dreadful anticipation of his death. Hugo lied on the ground, groggily, staring at the bleak sky. He hated feeling as if he was standing on some edge, though, in a very honest sort of way, he'd _always known_ he would die young. And when he had been twelve he'd nearly accepted this fate. Rose had been the one to console him, with the insane promise to keep him alive, an insane promise she ended up _carrying out_.

* * *

Several hours later Hugo woke with one question on his mind.

"Where's Ro-"

"Not here yet, though she's found Malfoy." Albus replied, without looking up from his potion. "He sent a patronus earlier letting me know they're on their way. They're together."

"That's good," Hugo sighed, slumping back on the ground, and looking around at the campsite. It was dark, much colder now, and he shivered. 'Though I wish they'd actually _get together_ too."

Albus said nothing for several moments, focusing on stirring his potion though focus wasn't needed for such a menial task. The fire crackled softly. Then, he fished a small vial out of his pocket and tossed it to Hugo.

"Felix felicis," he explained. "I made two vials a while back. I think luck might bide you over until I can devise the proper healing draught."

Hugo met his eyes and for a moment, it was almost heart rendering. At last, Hugo murmured. "Thanks."

Albus returned to his careful stirring. "I've never had to make a potion like this before. It will be good practice."

Hugo took a few sips of the liquid luck, his body buzzing in a pleasant way. "So is the second vial for yourself?" he asked, suddenly feeling brave enough to be nosy.

Albus ignored the question. "How does it feel?"

"Better. Though I may need to take a piss before I make the final verdict."

Albus gave a soft smirk and while it wasn't good natured, it wasn't downright derisive either. There was the glow of some shared joke between them.

Hugo fought the obnoxious urge to smirk back.

Instead he wriggled his legs and lifted himself up. His feet felt unsteady supporting his weight as he took the first few steps, very nearly falling over. Nearly. The luck had kicked in now.

Unlike Rose, Albus had not rushed to catch him.

Hugo was glad for this.

"Can we not tell Rose about any of this?" He found himself murmuring. "Don't want her to worry."

Albus gave a mocking little bow.

Hugo beamed in reply, then took to limping back and forth. He wanted to give his legs some practice while his insides were still buzzing. While he knew the potion was making him behave this way, he felt excited by the achievement nonetheless. It made him feel powerful.

"So you want your sister to be with Malfoy?"

The question was casual in nature, but thrown deliberately; the older boy's demeanor had tensed a little at it. Hugo found himself watching him for something.

" _Well_ ," He answered, with inflection. "She's only fancied him _since forever_. I reckon he'd make her happy."

Albus grew pensive, seeming to consider these words.

"I mean, since everything that happened, she sort of gave up on the idea of it all. But Scorp's persistent. Plus he's rich and got cool shoes. So I hope she'll come around sooner or later."

There was a strong silence in which he looked at Hugo, his eyes very careful. "And you don't think seeing her brother alive would make her happy?"

Sure Rose loved Hugo more than anything, and he her, but that type of love came from duty; obligation. Family. Hugo knew that if something ever happened to him, she'd need someone like Scorpius to move on with her life.

"I don't think Rosie's been happy in a long time." He acknowledged, in a somewhat morose tone.

He looked over at Albus, but the dark haired boy was no longer looking at him. He was staring into the depths of his cauldron, with a tiredness Hugo couldn't place.

* * *

When Rose arrived, the first thing she did was her arms around Hugo who, to her absolute joy, was well. And _mobile_. Severe separation anxiety had taken its toll; as they hugged she started crying. Hugo, being Hugo, assured her he was _ok, honest_ , and to stop snotting up his shirt.

"I'm done crying." She wiped her eyes. "See?"

"Good. Now apologize to my shirt, you madwoman."

She laughed, and gave him an embarrassingly sloppy kiss on the cheek. He rubbed the spot, airing the usual grievances.

And for a few blissful moments, everything was well.

Then they remembered where they were.

The night was vague, smoky, and the forest held nothing but faint _chittering_ noises. Sitting beside the sizzle of fire, they ate and rested, and Rose felt tension sear through her skin. The Ordine Corvis were up to something, something she knew they didn't want to be around for. But they couldn't leave; Scorpius' port key was unfixable.

"Curious," Albus said, fidgeting around with the goblet. "But unsurprising, I think."

"Gee, _thanks_."

"I'm not referring to your obvious incompetence, Malfoy. I mean it's no coincidence that our only mode of transportation's stopped working." A grim smile. "They won't let us leave that easily."

"We should to go into town in the morning and look for another route." Scorpius spoke through a mouthful of biscuits. "Floo maybe?"

"How would we access a fireplace?" Rose sighed, thinking with her head buried in hands. "Legally, that is."

"Legal, shmegal." A snort. "In case you haven't noticed, Weasel, but the people living here aren't exactly _friendly_. Ergo, they probably won't be offering to let us use their house floo. No, we have to do this the proper Slytherin way."

She glanced up, brow furrowing. "I don't want to pull any risky stunts with my brother."

"You never let me have fun." Hugo whined.

" _Merlin_ Weasel, let your brother have some fun. I mean look at the poor kid- look at his _face_."

As if on cue, Hugo started with bawling whale noises. Rose used the opportunity to replace the candy bar in his hand with a granola bar. He stuffed half into his mouth and pretended to gag.

Annoyed by the loud noises, Albus shot a look at Hugo, who immediately straightened up to an effect. "Breaking and entering will be difficult with a cripple on our hands."

"Oi!" Came a cry of outrage. "I'm mobile now, _you tosser_." The remaining bar was tossed at the offender and deflected via shield charm. An overly flashy one. Hugo gaped at the colors.

"Cool," he awed, making Rose roll her eyes. Albus smiled blackly, tucking his wand away.

"I'll carry the sodding cripple if I have to. C'mhere." Scorpius walked over and lifted him, piggy back. "Hugo, mate. If you were my brother, I'd let you eat all the candy and pull all the risky stunts you wanted."

Hugo pretended to consider this. "Depends. How much candy can you afford?"

"I'm filthy rich, mate. Dunno…a lot?"

"Relax Malfoy, there will be no need for risky action." Albus muttered, lighting a fag. "It's possible that this is nothing more than a false threat. Since we've now retrieved Hugo, they'll be looking everywhere for us. And what better way than to draw us out in public? They want us to panic… we're better off hiding for the time."

Scorpius let Hugo slide to his feet. "Potter, we can't just sit around waiting to get _slaughtered_. I mean you've seen what these people are capable of-"

"So what's the _real_ reason you don't want to leave just yet?" Rose interjected, eyes narrowing on Albus. "Because that's what this is about isn't it? Your own plans."

He looked between them, calmly. "They want me alive."

"And how do I know they won't kill _the rest of us?_ "

"They won't. You have my word."

"Not sure how good that is anymore."

Albus gave an annoyed blink. "Is there a problem?" He said, regarding her a bit icily.

Sensing things were about to take a turn for the worse, Scorpius opened his mouth to intervene, but Rose cut him off. "Yes, Albus," she said, glaring back, "it _becomes_ a problem when my brother gets hurt in the midst of your schemes. They were after you all this time, and Hugo's the one who got hurt…and that's _not_ ok."

"I'm not a Seer." His voice held a twinge. "I didn't think-"

"You should've told me you had powerful enemies. You should've _warned_ me." Her own came out wobbly. "Is that too much to ask? A warning?"

He gave her a cold, penetrating look to nip her resentment back into place. But she didn't back off.

"It's all just a game to you, isn't it? Do the rest of us matter so little to you that you can't even be bothered to let us in on what's going on? Why do you have to lie _so much_?"

"Rose, don't." Hugo tried, seeing her pull her wand.

She threw a hex, which Albus very nearly didn't dodge out of surprise. His brows raised slightly. "What are you-"

And another. And another. He drew his wand and deftly blocked them, but didn't retaliate. With a steady glare, she fired hexes backing him into a tree.

"Our lives don't matter. No, nothing matters except _you_ getting what _you_ want," she lashed. "God, you're such a _bastard_."

Albus blocked the jinx aimed for his face. His back made impact with tree-truck as a wand held him in place by the throat. He stared coldly at his attacker, but didn't falter, didn't lash back. It was strange, how the tables had turned with who was exhibiting restraint for whom. Who was bending over for whom. Who was being complacent, who was trying to please. And the shift was not sudden; it was the slow accumulation of _something_ , over the months or maybe even years, he didn't know, bundled between thick layers of spite and frigidness. For a split second he thought that she might punch him, not that he was afraid of her little fists.

"Rose," he said, eyes flashing "Put your wand down. Put it away or-"

"Or what?"

"Or I'll _hurt_ you."

She wiped wetness from her eyes defiantly… and _laughed_.

"Well, that's nothing new is it?"

Albus reacted slightly to this. He opened his mouth to speak but no words came out.

"Weasel."

Instead it was Scorpius. He put his arms around the girl, wrapping her in a tight hug. "Relax," he said softly. She wrestled his grip at first but he continued to hold her, murmuring things in her ear. At last she relaxed into the embrace, but her anger didn't fade. She continued glaring over his shoulder at Albus. And of course Albus glared back.

Hugo watched from his spot, stunned by all the interactions. Scorpius then put a comforting arm around his sister and walked her into one of the tents. While Albus remained in the same spot, fuming, swallowing hard several times as though fighting off something he did not want witnessed. Hugo was torn between going after his sister or helping to calm the boy down somehow.

"Al-"

Albus did not seem to hear him, his breathing irregular and heavy. His shoulders heaved in silent fury. He ran a hand through his hair and took a deep breath which he released slowly, and for a moment Hugo thought he'd have another fit of anger.

But he didn't. He sat down, against the tree, exhausted.

Hugo watched him bury his head in his hands.

* * *

That night, violence colored all of her thoughts and sleep was impossible. Horrid images floated back and forth inside her mind, her brother being kicked, yelled at, beaten, _brutally_ mutilated...

He wouldn't talk about it. In spite of his whining and resistance, she'd made him undress so she could study the slashes on his back. He claimed he was _fine, honest_ , but Rose knew better than to believe him. Hugo was always trying to spare her feelings, just as she was always trying to protect him, until they was unsure who was coddling who.

Strange, and a little upsetting too, that her brother tried to coddle her back. She was the older one, after all. It was _her_ job.

Guilt knifed her stomach.

She had wanted to stay with him, but Hugo insisted on having the whole bed to himself to sprawl out on. He complained about her being a restless sleeper. This was sadly true, but did not prevent her from making several trips all night to check up on him.

She never wanted to leave his side again.

A blond head poked into her tent. "You still up?"

Swallowing all her morbid thoughts, Rose gave a nod.

Scorpius grinned, taking this as invitation to come inside. "Well, just wanted to tell you I spent fifteen solid minutes staring at your sleeping brother. I was trying to decide who's the cuter Weasley and I mean...just…he _wins_."

A snort. "I'll be sure to tell him that when he wakes up."

"No need. I already did. Threw a pillow at me and told me to bugger off which, of course, means he was _super flattered_."

"I'm glad someone responds to your flattery."

"Never underestimate a bromance, Weasel. Your brother and I are going places you know." He strolled over, collapsing across the base of her bed with a yawn. "And anyway, I've already promised to take him for a flying lesson once this is all over."

"Glad you two have your priorities sorted."

"Reckon he could use a good time after all this. Doesn't hurt to have something to look forward to, you know," he murmured, poking at her toes. "And who knows, maybe I'll take _you_ on a flying lesson too. Miss Auror."

"I know how to fly, Malfoy."

" _Merlin_ , Weasel. Read between the lines, won't you?"

She sat up, staring at him in disbelief.

"I'm not sure you understand what's going on here, Malfoy." She spoke slowly. "But our port-key's stopped working. Hugo's barely well. People are trying to _kill_ us. And on top of it, Albus has chosen now to be his bastard self and not give a _damn_ about anything." An edge seeped into her voice. "So I'm not sure that now's the best time for you to ask me out."

"I doubt there's ever going to be a best time, Weasel."

"Well that's _not_ my fault," she seethed, his comment rubbing her the wrong way. She plopped her face onto her pillow and closed her eyes, ignoring him. Her nerves felt frayed, broken. Either Scorpius had foot-in-mouth syndrome or she was being overly sensitive, but she couldn't help it. She didn't have the capacity to think about going on dates in some imaginary future, not when _barely scraping by_ had always been hard enough.

But the blond didn't leave. He stood with hands stuffed in his pockets, managing to look endearing in spite of the pain he was being.

"Weasel," he said, his voice soft. "Is it something else?"

Scorpius thought he was about to encounter an impossible obstacle and by something he, of course, meant _someone_ , but Rose didn't catch on. She just turned to him, perplexed, and Scorpius felt broaching the subject itself had been a stupid move.

She turned over in her sheets, shaking her head. "Look I'm just tired. It's been a long day." She breathed.

He bit the inside of his cheek, trying not to look too put off. "It's fine. Want me to leave you alone?"

A pause.

"You can stay if you want. Just talk about something else."

* * *

Much like his sister, Hugo laid in bed unable to sleep, but for an entirely different reason. There was twisting and turning, and restless wondering just _how much_ of his life he'd spent lying in a bed.

Disgusted with where that query led him, he got up.

He grabbed the crutches Rose had conjured for him and slipped out. The campsite was silent, the fire out, and he heard a voice from his sister's tent that sounded suspiciously like Scorpius. Making the obvious perverted assumption, he snickered and decided not to intrude on them…however funny it might've been.

Funny, and probably pretty gross.

Instead, he limped over to Albus' tent.

For a split second Hugo thought that the boy would be sulking from his rough spat with Rose earlier. Entering, he found this was not the case.

Albus was sprawled out on a chair, eyes closed, head splayed back, and Hugo would've thought he was asleep if there wasn't a hefty spellbook levitating in front of him. But he wasn't holding his wand. And Hugo couldn't for the life of him figure out _how_ it was happening.

The cousin opened his eyes and caught sight of him, his face falling into a casual smirk. "Can't sleep either?"

Hugo nodded, turning to the book. "How are you doing that?"

"That?" As he reached to touch, the book teasingly lifted out of his reach. "It's nothing more than a simple levitating charm, Hugo. A…trick I've been practicing for a while."

He snorted.

"Well it's cool. Could you teach me?"

"Not yet." Green eyes watched him with reserved amusement. "But I can teach you other things."

Hugo felt his insides swell, and tried to keep from sounding too excited. "Like those essential hexes?"

"If you want."

"Right now?" Hugo asked, only half-joking.

Albus' stare lingered on him for a moment, before turning. "Not right now."

Just then the book came crashing down in front of him, and he gripped his crutches to keep from falling over. Its pages fluttered open on their own.

"You'll have to read and learn on your own, if you decide to at all. I'll only offer guidance when you need it."

Hugo reached to touch the book, tracing his fingers along the edge. He nodded intently.

He spent many hours that night in Albus' company, combing through spellbooks and feeling a general buzz of excitement from it. Though it may have been the felix felicis; the older boy had told him to take a few sips every couple hours to keep his symptoms at bay, until he devised a proper solution. Albus even explained to him the recipe he was using for it, and showed him his working cauldron, and allowed him to chop and add some bay leaves. Though Hugo learned very quickly he wasn't good at chopping things. Albus taught him the healing charm for the small scrapes and told him to practice until he got it right. He said it was one of the most useful spells there was.

Meanwhile Albus continued practicing what he learned later was _wandless_ magic. He moved from books to bags, and finally, to his small cot, on which Hugo lay sprawled practicing his incantation; Albus oscillated it up and down, testing the limits of his mental hold. It was a game, of risk and trust. The higher the cot, the greater the risk of injury….and the more he had to trust Albus _not_ to let him fall.

Hugo could picture the horror on his sister's face upon seeing them.

"You won't tell Rose about this will you?"

The older boy blew puffs of cigarette smoke. "There is no need for your sister to know everything," he scoffed.

Hugo relaxed. "Thanks."

"Of course." A vague chuckle, and the bed lifted higher, _higher_. "Where would we be without our secrets? Hmm? Boys like us."

Hugo gripped the covers in his fists. "Boys like us?"

"Boys who can't sleep at night."

 _Boys like us_. Hugo liked the way it sounded.

"Speaking of secrets…"

Hugo looked up to find Albus sitting up, green-eyes scouring him with interest.

"Tell me what it was like, dying."

There was a shift in the air. Hugo took a small breath.

"Not sure if I'm supposed to talk about it," he murmured.

"Rose isn't _here_ , Hugo." The boy stood up, his gaze never breaking from Hugo. "There is no one telling what to do or how to think…and you do _want_ to talk about it, don't you? You're the only human being ever to cross the threshold and return…your experience is _invaluable_." He cocked his head to one side. "It would be a shame not to share it."

A pause.

"You don't trust me."

"It's not _that_ ," Hugo stammered. He licked his lips. "I…I don't remember. I remember falling asleep and waking up, n-not the in between… I _swear_ , Albus."

His face was almost passive. "I see."

Hugo felt a small jolt in his stomach. "You do?"

Albus paced over, his movements slow but assured. "I understand your reason for concern, Hugo. I understand you are incredibly loyal to your sister, and you wouldn't indulge something she has explicitly told you never to indulge to someone she has _probably_ warned you not to trust. But of course, this puts you in a very uncompromising situation right now."

The cot was a good ten feet high. Hugo stared warily over the edge.

"Can you put me down?"

"Let me finish, Hugo. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I also understand Rose has never actually _told_ you how the spell is done? You've never been trained in Occulmency either—otherwise I would have sensed it. This leads me to believe that you know as little about her method as I do… _which_ leads me to believe that you and I are in the same predicament." Albus' eyes remained concentrated on his face. A smirk. "Two sides of the same coin, we are."

 _Boys like us._

Hugo scrunched his brow. "So what do you want from _me_ then?"

"Nothing you should be unwilling to give… nothing that harms you."

"Which is?"

"Your memory of dying. I want to see it."

 _"Why?"_

"I…" Albus faltered. He looked away, breaking eye contact with Hugo for the first time. "I suppose I want to know what it's like. To cross over. I want to know what happens _after_."

A pause.

"I told you I don't remember."

"That doesn't mean you don't have the memory buried somewhere away. If you let me, I can find it…we can watch it together."

Hugo took a moment to consider the offer. He did not possess his sister's sought after spell, and so he supposed there was little danger in letting Albus inside his mind. It was a personal decision. Hugo could admit he'd grown to like the boy, and wanted to _trust_ him. After all Albus had saved him, had fed and bathed and given him felix felicis, and was intent on keeping all this from Rose (by his asking). He was even making him a _healing draught_. Whether these were genuine acts of kindness, Hugo didn't know.

But, if he _refused_ he figured Albus would just take the memory anyway. The fact he hadn't done so already told Hugo he was at least _trying_ not to upset him. Maybe he felt the same sense of camaraderie. _Boys like us._ Albus didn't care to treat him a like sick boy, instead allowed him a streak of independence he had never had before. There was no coddling, arm holding, piggy back rides. Instead there was expectation, and challenge, and _magic._

Hugo found it enthralling.

"Fine, you can see the memory. But only if you show me something in exchange."

The older boy looked bemused. "Well, what do you want?"

"I want to know what it's like to do… _you know_ … with a girl." He flushed, shaking his head. "I don't want to see the physical bit. That'd be awkward. Just the…emotions."

Albus gave this a serious moment's thought.

"I expect Scorpius has a few we can borrow."

"Why can't you show me one of yours?"

"Only because I think you would be disappointed."

When Albus didn't elaborate, Hugo left it alone.

"Well, as long as it's nothing something weird with him and my sister. They were in the tent earlier together too." Distaste crossed his face. "I don't want a mental image of _that_."

Neither did Albus, apparently. His concentration snapped. Hugo gave a yelp as the levitating cot faltered, and the wizard had to grab his wand to catch it in time.

After a prolonged moment of silence, he turned to Hugo as if nothing had happened. "Are we ready then?"

 _Flipping through Hugo's memories, through dull days spent in the hospital, dull days with Healer clamoring over him, dull days spent doing nothing, dull after dull, he searched for the right one._

 _There it was._

 _Out in a field, Rose was holding his frail body. Her eyes pooled with tears, she pointed her wand at him and—yes, yes. Albus couldn't believe his luck. Finally. After all this time. He'd finally learn how—_

Albus fell back, gasping.

There it was the noise. Like Before. Hands grasped at his hair and Albus found they were His Own. Knuckles burned with exertion, white hot pain spreading searing down Body Parts like molten lava. Hands. Face. Fingertips. Groin. Shooting through his core crawling consuming his thoughts. Hellfire? Thirsty thirsty thirsty why was he so thirsty?

A quick scramble. He was racing out of the tent. There was the iced lake and with no second thoughts he made a mad leap.

Water flooded his lungs and relief consumed his bones. Thirst expunged, his thoughts calmed. Then, at once, then he was _freezing_.

He swam to land, pulled himself over, and collapsed. His body ached everywhere.

"Albus!"

Hugo had limped after him with a towel. He threw it around his shoulders.

"Are you ok?"

Albus shook so hard he was unable to form words. Hugo leant down to hear him better, but was forcibly pulled into an embrace by the wet, freezing boy. A yelp.

It was only in times of great duress or severe pain Albus yielded to human contact, but this was more than a surrender, it was a _need_. He clung to Hugo so desperately he did not even know he was doing it; the boy looked startled but did not pull away. He held him back, and Albus could not stop shivering in his small arms. The boy consoled him with murmurs of _it's ok, it's ok_ , patting his back. Albus wanted to speak, cry, _something_ , but found he did not know how. His thoughts were vague, fragmented. His body was not his own, instead now a vessel that held extreme pain. He thought he knew how to control pain, to stomach horror; he thought that his father had prepared him for all that was brutal in the world.

But he had never truly seen _anything_ until now.

All his youth he had felt drawn to the very same things all Great and Terrible Wizards were. He walked the same unsteady line between genius and madness, fascination and compulsion. It was a careful balancing act. His father must've known this, hence the emphasis on control. But slips could not be prevented. It was the price to pay for getting to tread the great boundaries of magic, for progress, for uncovering the Unknown.

Death was a riddle, endlessly intriguing, waiting to be unraveled. _Just waiting_ for a wizard of his aptitude to come along.

So Albus had always thought.

It took a sliver, the mere _taste_ of dying to make him realize just how out of his depth he was.

* * *

Translations:

 _je suis désolé_ —I am sorry (French)


	20. Fall pt 1

For several months following the war, when her boyfriend chose to disappear, a part of Ginny doubted that he would ever return. Still she let him go. Why? Because he was Harry Goddamn Potter, the boy who always ever fought his demons alone, and she was the girl who always understood – or at least _tried_ to.

Pain dulled but the scar would never fade, a lifelong memento. So now there was numbness, and insomniac nights spent trailing over it with absent fingers. He said there were things he still didn't understand. She didn't know why he wanted to cling to what had practically been the bane of his seventeen years of existence.

When Harry returned, and he _did_ return, he was different though it was difficult to pinpoint exactly how…it would be too easy to say that the Chosen One had been driven mad by the atrocities of evil. Or that he had learned to embrace his own cynicism in isolation. No, that was not it. Or maybe it was. But it was not _all_. It was the brutal conversion of boy to man in the way only _war_ can manage. For him, the desperate gush of relief had been short-lived. Instead, the newfound appreciation for life came with a heavy dose of survivor's guilt. And the fear…

 _Beside her, a gasp, as Harry jolted awake with a full-body shiver._

 _It frightened her, sometimes, when his eyes snapped open like this and stared up at the ceiling – as vacant and murky as the sky stretching out beyond their closed room. She curled up beside him, her fingers wrapping his wrist, and he could breathe once more._

 _"It's just the storm, Harry."_

The fear that any moment everything would be ripped from him was not gone. Would never be gone, she supposed. But it had _evolved._

 ** _Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?_**

He said it was the part always removed in exaggerated retellings of Voldemort's defeat, the moment before at King's Cross. But he knew now what was real and what was not. The Chosen One's victory. What victory? He said all he'd done was dodge a bullet. As if a scrawny seventeen-year old could match a near-immortal dark lord in prowess. No, it was not _his_ victory. It was his dead mother's, and dead Dumbledore's, and everyone else, dead or alive, who had always been there to cover his ass. It had been a joint effort.

A _very close_ joint effort.

Life went on. Two careers and three children later, the world had calmed down, though Harry predicted serenity was – _is always_ – short lived. Peace was a mask, he said, in a world where war is _constant_. You just couldn't see it. His wife could not see it, and did not know what to make of it.

(It would've helped, perhaps, had he made her understand before he left.)

Harry loved all his children equally, but Albus had a special place in his heart from the very beginning. The resemblance between them was uncanny, though the boy held an added potential to be truly brilliant. And terrifying.

 _Father and son stood in a barren field, out in the middle of nowhere._

 _The boy lifted his wand, pointing it at the mass of abnormally large spiders. Without a trace of emotion, he uttered the forbidden words._

 _Avada Kedavra_

 _The crackle of green and the spiders were dead. Within seconds._

 _A smug expression flitted his face. He turned around, only to find his father had tears streaming down his face._

 _For a moment Albus stared, alarmed by this reaction._

 _"Did I do it wrong?" he asked._

 _Harry shook his head. "Oh no, Albus. You did it perfectly….I'm just a little surprised by how easily… easily you managed it."_

 _Taking this as praise, the boy returned a faint smile._

The resemblance was not only to him.

Albus was stone-cold, wise beyond his years, and yet so painfully childlike one might forget just _who else_ he mirrored. The boy had a natural drive, a gift, far from the mechanical product of some prophecy.

 _The open carcass of a very large rodent, pinned down to plastic with Lily's hairclips._

 _His mother stood outside his bedroom, mortified, watching the boy draw feverishly in his notebook. The rat in front, crumpled papers littered the space around him. His father's wand was tossed haphazardly to his side._

 _"Albus, what are you doing!?"_

Ginny thought him disturbed. Others children called him _freak_. Having spent enough time in cupboards to know better, Harry sought to love his son against all odds. Curiosity, after all, was a marker for brilliance. All he needed was attention, guidance.

Albus was far, far cleverer than any other boy of his age and even most adults, and the older he got, the more difficult he became to fully grasp. Gone was the age of curious questions and excited chatter, where sons thought their fathers were gods with answers to everything. Albus was becoming more and more independent, more _adolescent_.

He returned from his first year at Hogwarts with a harsher exterior. Schooling had bored him, but from peers he'd learned valuable social lessons. Beatings yielded frustration. Frustration yielded hatred, resentment, furthering his precocious arrogance; the coping mechanisms of a boy who simply _did not understand_. He became sly, furtive. He could be downright charming when he wanted—but only superficially—and never with his father. Surely, the man that had raised him, that had fed him and changed him would see right through some bag of school boy tricks.

Albus was clever, but his father was _always_ cleverer.

Hitting adolescence, their conversations became shorter, clipped. Once, being gone on some six month 'business' trip, his father had floo-ed him at school:

 _"So how is everyone? How's your mum?"_

 _"Fine. Good." Albus answered, looking elsewhere._

 _"And Hogwarts?"_

 _"The same."_

 _"How are your studies?"_

 _"Dull."_

 _"Getting along with everyone?"_

 _"Yes."_

Perfunctory questions. Perfunctory responses. They were making small talk. Playing their assumed father-and-son roles. And ignoring the fact that Albus most certainly did not get along with everyone.

And once he returned…

 _"Dad." The boy framed him a polite smile. "How was your trip?"_

 _"Same as usual, Albus." Harry waved it away, setting his bags down. "Now what about you? Good term?"_

 _"Yes."_

 _"How were exams?"_

 _"Nothing."_

 _"I expect you've had a girlfriend or two by now." He chuckled._

 _The thirteen-year-old looked disgruntled at the idea. He shook his head._

 _"No?"_

 _His brow set. "No."_

 _"It's natural to be curious, Albus. About women."_

 _"It's not like that."_

 _Harry held a soft smile. "I think you are curious, Albus. You're the most curious boy I know."_

 _A flicker of boyish distaste passed over his face. Clearly he thought himself better than James, with no interest in indulging the idiotic, squealing girls that clamored around the two of them._

 _"I have better things to be curious about."_

 _"Is that so?"_

There—they'd been treading too close to _don't ask, don't tell_ policy. Albus had quickly steered the conversation elsewhere, having no intention of revealing his more dangerous Hogwarts misdemeanors to his father. Harry was much smarter and saw right through him. It was necessary to tread with caution, and at the same time it was pointless.

His father swallowed his lies as readily as Albus swallowed his. Not for a second did Albus actually believe he'd been on a business trip; nor did, he knew, the man expect him to. This was simply the way they played off each other. Turning blind eye for blind eye. They were equals in this way, guarding each other, trusting and distrusting in equal modes. For the illusion of normalcy they would ask dull and often ridiculous questions, calculating each other's responses. It was a game of wit and words and something Albus couldn't really pin down. They were playing house, but it was not about family or love; it was about forbidden knowledge, and the burden that came with it. In many ways, they were only killing time.

He knew someday his father would tell him everything.

Or hoped.

Because the lessons never ended. His father always found _something_ to challenge him. It was gruesome and dreadful, and in some sick twisted way left him wanting more. Training would continue during breaks, summers.

 _"Put your wand down, Albus. I want to talk first."_

 _A touch disappointed, the fourteen year old boy slumped, ready for what he figured would be a very dull sermon on wand mechanics._

 _Sitting down beside him, Harry continued. "Now, we're going to try something very different with the Cruciatus today. And I want you to be mentally prepared."_

 _"I'm prepared," he said, impatience seeping into his tone. He didn't mention he'd been practicing it on spiders on his own. He wanted his father to think it was purely natural talent._

 _"Albus, I want you to practice on me."_

 _Stunned silent, green stared at green in alarm._

 _Harry reached to touch his arm, and the response came in a violent jerk away._

 _"I can't have you practice on spiders forever," Harry insisted. "This really is the safest way."_

 _An anxious headshake._

 _"Albus," he said, in a quiet voice._

Albus would remember his last lesson with father well, an unfinished lesson. The tables turned, his father was on the ground this time. It was not difficult to draw the rage, the fuel. It was _shockingly_ easy.

 _"Crucio."_

Hatred pulsed in his veins, pouring out the length of his wand. The crackle of fiery magic made contact with chest and sparked pain. Like something that was screaming for release. And the _screams._ Not his. Not this time, no. The man, hands clenched at hair, lay convulsing. It was sickening. His father. Twisted permission. Himself. Some perverse fantasy. But it was no fantasy, no, it was real. And happening.

 _Wand slipped from shocked fingers._

 _The small boy fell over, insides shuddering, and retched into grass. He wiped his mouth and stifled something like a gasp._

 _Legs trembling, he stood up and began to run. Away, as far as he could get._

 _The man called after him._

Albus was many things – childish, needy, stubborn – but above all he was a runner, and this fact would not change even later in life. Intuition told Harry there was only one place he could have fled.

Harry stood outside, coat drenched, hair askew, when his young niece opened the door.

"Uncle Harry," Rose said, startled. "It's late. What are you doing here? Is everything ok?"

"Yes, I'm just looking for Albus. I—" A pause. "Where are your parents?"

Rose squirmed at the door. "Some emergency at the office."

The adult's brow creased. "They left you alone?"

"They said they'd be back quickly. Plus, Hugo's already asleep." A shrug. "It's not a big deal."

"Right." Harry nodded. "Well, will you tell them I stopped by? Tell them to see me in the morning. There's something we need to discuss before I leave tomorrow."

"Sure thing."

As the girl moved to close the door, Harry stopped her.

"Also, is Albus in there by chance?"

Rose flushed.

"He came and sort of fell asleep," she said sheepishly.. "I'll send him back tomorrow. My parents won't mind. Honest."

"I need to talk to him." He moved toward the door. Rose blocked his way.

"He's not well."

"This is important, Rose."

"He doesn't want to talk."

"How would you know that? You said he was asleep."

Rose avoided his gaze. "Sorry, Uncle Harry," she murmured. "But I can't let you see him right now."

With that, she closed the door. She locked it twice before making her way into the sitting room.

Beside the fireplace Albus stood, fingers curled around a mug of herbal tea, eyes focused into the burning embers with the intensity of a glare.

"He's gone," she said, though it was clear he'd been listening in. "Do you want to talk?"

His expression was even more frightening mutilated in hearth half-light, but she held his glower, watching him soften to a point. He shook his head unfeelingly and looked away.

Rose didn't know why she thought it'd be otherwise. Nights like these, when Albus came crawling through her window looking stricken-pale, a ghost, he hardly ever spoke, let alone about _what happened_.

Being too old to nap together at fourteen, these visits were less frequent, but on the rare instance they happened, he was so shaken that Rose didn't have the heart to say no. They were too big to share anymore – or Rose figured she'd end up pushed off – so one took the couch and the other the bed. Albus let her choose. He was rarely ever nice, but it was only time one might say he was cooperative. Maybe even considerate. Rose wished he would talk to her. What was the point of a secret sleepover if you didn't talk?

Without knowing what was going on, Rose felt compelled to take his side even though Uncle Harry was nicer. Fights and feuds aside, Albus was her constant playmate. And besides, Uncle Harry had _loads_ of adults to take his side. It was a matter of loyalty. Or friendship. Or something like that.

And also, Rose hoped that someday Albus would return the favor.

* * *

The Michelangelo of mankind chiseled away at marble, smoothing edges and carving details that stretched out against the fabric of Time, until alabaster stone stood finished, glowing in eternal perfection. It was the work of hard labor and stunning calculation… paved in the blood and sacrifice of _human_ men.

In three days, the wizarding world would change once more.

His hands paid the price. They were scarred, cracked, worn, aching from obsessive toil; the only parts of him any longer to bear human qualities. Nails, black and sharp as talons, attached to long fingers blossoming out from a palm marked by bulging blood-blue veins. They were both blessing and abomination.

In three days, the wizarding world would change once more.

It would begin in the wizarding town called Little Norton, the magical disaster planned by that human Graham Paisley; his excitement was akin to a child given a brand new toy. How he had begged and pleaded for a chance – just _one chance_ – to stand out, become one with history, immortalize himself in books. He wanted to be the one to usher in the British Ministry of Magic's first _memorable_ failure.

All this work to become a mere footnote… what a _meager_ form of immortality

How predictable villains so often were.

But no – Graham Paisley was not a villain. He was a petty criminal with a stroke of luck and his fifteen minutes of fame were quickly diminishing. Rather the human _deserving_ of a footnote was Samuel H. Bargeworthy, who'd long ago concocted the idea of an experimental society where law did _not_ reign. He claimed Magic was not religion, nor country, nor any other institution that could continue to be governed… _abused_ by flawed men like Fudge and Scrimgeour, both of whom were partly responsible for the rise of so-called-terror named Tom Riddle.

Everyone knew Little Norton was destined for failure from its very origins.

To abolish the structure that had for so long defined human morality…proof a free man's world was as dangerous as the contrary. Bargeworthy did not understand the larger purpose of government. He did not realize that the moment wizards lost organization they'd lose all sense of self. Become lambs out for slaughter. Still, where the human lacked in logic he made up for with followers; pessimists and extremists for whom there was no end to their hatred for the Ministry of Magic.

Surely, a town which found its roots in isolation and anarchy—the word was synonymous with _apathy_ —could never become truly self-sufficient.

It came as no surprise to anyone that crime was the most prosperous business in town.

It came as no surprise to anyone that crime was the _only_ business in town

And that crime itself was owned by the likes of the _Ordine Corvis._

Little did they know that in three days, the wizarding world would change once more. The town that gone large unnoticed till now would finally win the fame it deserved. No longer would its filthy (lack of) conduct pass undiscussed save for _hush-hush_ utterances among drunken aurors. No longer would beggars and stray dogs litter its cobblestoned pathways, vocal out in the hungry mornings. The marketplace would no longer bustle with dark robes and rancid smells. And the long line of prostitutes standing outside the apothecary, fanning themselves invitingly? They would be memorialized. Immortalized.

Through their obliteration they would become one with history.

* * *

A purple-haired prostitute noticed them and gestured at Scorpius, who turned a faint color.

"Bet you feel special," Rose teased from beside him.

He gave a chuckle but didn't make eye contact, pacing ahead of her. Dubious brows raised, but she said nothing, instead trailing after him down the thin, twisting alleyway.

All morning Scorpius had been acting moody, aloof. If Rose was honest with herself then she already knew why. He was brooding over last night, when she rejected him for trying it on with her in the _middle of a crisis_. But Rose wasn't honest with herself – or maybe she was bitter on her end too – and the matter was overshadowed by the larger, more pressing issue at hand.

With no portkey, and the floo network apparently down, the two had been floating in and out of shops all morning speaking with people, trying to gauge the situation but getting nowhere. There was rising tension in the air; shopkeepers closed up early while stroller-wielding ladies hurriedly shuffled home. No one stuck around long enough to answer their questions.

They spent many hours exploring the town from its fringes, walking alley after cobblestoned alley to dead end. Strange enough, even the smaller passageways into the muggle world were blocked.

"Fuck." Scorpius burst. He put his hands on the thick concrete barrier, pushing against it. "Where the fuck are we anyway?"

She tried several spells but it wouldn't budge. He kicked against it twice and cursed several times, running a frustrated hand through his hair.

"Let's keep looking," she said.

"Maybe Potter's—"

"He's _not_ right."

Albus was back at the campsite with Hugo, resting, recovering from a suspiciously believable fever he'd contracted in absolutely no time. He had predicted that all the magical entrances would be closed off. He knew more about this place than they did. Little Norton, like Diagon Alley, was not somewhere one could find on a map. Hidden behind the walls of various run-of-the-mill muggle diners, accessible only by magical means that were now faltering, Little Norton was a closed nonsensical loop.

Scorpius sighed, his head sinking a little as he brought it to rest against the wall.

"So how was Potter anyways? Sick or faking it like we figured."

 _"You're wasting your time." Albus had coughed into his arm. "Your search will be pointless."_

 _"Well we can't just sit around and wait—"_

 _"I'm not asking you to do that. I'm asking you to be a little patient."_

 _"Patient for what?" Her voice rose an octave. "For you to face off against the most terrifying man in the country right now? Let me put things into perspective for you—you look like shit. You can't even get out of bed."_

 _"That's not-"_

 _Albus stopped short and cupped a hand over his mouth. She watched him erupt in another coughing fit. He buried his face into his pillow, wheezing, fists clenched around sheets._

 _"And what would you have me do?" His voice came out muffled. "Run away?"_

 _She stared at him, her anger dissolving. A pang of emotion shot through her._

 _"No," she murmured, reaching to palm his burning cheek. "Just stay with me."_

 _He turned away from the gesture with a scoff. "You don't even know what you're saying."_

 _"Once we get out of here, I'll get the Ministry on this. I'll make sure Paisley stops hunting you."_

 _"No, no." He shook his head in his pillow. "It won't work."_

 _"I'll protect you," she insisted. "Just let me handle it, Albus."_

 _"No, Rose."_

 _She watched him pull the covers over his head._

 _"You should leave." His voice had lost that human quality that allowed one to guess what he was thinking. "I'm… not well right now. I'd like to be alone."_

"Evasive. Unresponsive," she replied, her voice a bitter murmur. "Pissed at me. As usual."

"He couldn't have been that pissed if he gave you his jacket." Scorpius turned around, cocking his head at her. "Speaking of which, you know you wear his jacket _a lot_."

"So?"

"So nothing, Weasel. It's weird."

She rolled her eyes and stared overhead. The clouds had shifted for once, and with the inclusion of sun, things looked less bleak but certainly felt more. They began moving once more, trailing past small wizarding edifices, which had been nothing but dark mounds the other night, but now resembled actual bricked homes. People's homes.

"You two always wear each other's clothes?" Scorpius probed again. He absently dropped more than a few galleons into a beggar's tin cup as they stalked by. The beggar looked aghast by the generosity but the rich Malfoy didn't notice.

"Well?" he prompted.

" _Yes_ , Malfoy. Al's always borrowing my skirts. He wears them to all the parties. Didn't you know that?"

"Now there's an image I'll never unsee."

Rose snorted dryly.

Market lights flickered in the distance, and curiosity compelled them forward. Their hands sat trained at wand. They walked inches of each other, careful not to lock eyes with the silently menacing figures inhabiting shrouded corners.

The filthy, overwhelming stench of a thousand bodily odors assaulted them as they heard clamoring overhead and the whizzing of surrounding gnats dulled…slowly faded away—men and women jostled past them. They followed the runners into open air, a range of broad daylight and dangerous visibility: the market square. She drew on her hood and made Scorpius do the same. There the clamoring rose and swelled and turned to voices, overlapping in a raucous uproar.

 _Crowds_ of people.

Rose stopped in her tracks.

The beast of Diagon Alley rose in memory: the screaming, tearing, pushing, pulling, shoving, falling, hurting, kicking, desperate to get to her and—

Scorpius had gripped her arm and was giving her a reassuring look. She forced her fear down her throat, burying it deep inside her, and nodded. Together they navigated their way through the throngs of outraged wizards.

At the end was an open slit in a brick wall, the main passage way from Little Norton to the muggle world. It was glazed over with some sort of magic. A charm Rose didn't recognize.

Sparks erupted as dozens of spells hit against the slit, simultaneously, and rebounded back towards the casters.

"Agh!"

Shrieks rang out amidst the crowd, people shielding their loved ones. Other wizards tried to shove through with brute force and were repelled— _violently thrown_ —backwards.

"Oi, what's the deal there?" Scorpius asked a thin old man standing nearby, arms folded, spectating.

"Been closed all morning. People been trying to fly and apparate too, but no good. Keep coming back, saying something won't bloody let them."

Scorpius blinked. "What does that mean? There's some containment charm over this place?"

"Have the authorities been contacted about this?" Rose asked.

The man gave a whooping cackle. "You joking? No one wants any ruddy aurors here. To hell with the Ministry."

She contained a breath, and turned her attention back to the slit. More spells—shot, spluttered. Watching charm after charm fizzle against the barrier, the air seemed to deflate from her lungs. No portkey. No floo. And now all the magical entrances had been closed off too.

Hopelessness began to set in.

Looking just as distraught, Scorpius tugged at her arm and gestured for them leave. They made their way out of the bustling crowd and slipped back into the alleys.

Far enough away, she snapped— "Idiots."

"Idiots." he agreed, scowling. "All freedom and what have they got to show for it? Kids sitting on sidewalks. Lowlives standing ready to pound your head in. Absolutely no clue what the hell is happening in their own town. Sure I don't like the ministry as much as anyone else—mostly because they do _shit_ —but this is just ridiculous."

"The Ministry does the best it can." Rose found herself arguing, to her own surprise.

Scorpius quirked a brow at her. "See that's the thing, Weasel. Maybe a few years ago that was ok, but their best isn't _good enough anymore_." He shook his head. "And besides, everyone knows Shacklebolt's a fucking doormat. He lets other countries walk all over him—don't you remember that conference?"

"He's trying to prevent war," Rose retorted. "What do you expect him to do? Tell them to _shove off, no you can't put England under containment_? Do you see that going over well?"

A shrug. "All I'm saying is he needed to look strong and all he did was look old and worn."

"You sound like a mouthpiece for your dad."

"We don't see eye to eye on everything but the man's got perspective, Weasel. I'm not gonna deny that. And anyway, my dad's a bit more forgiving. He thinks Shacklebolt's the better of two evils. Me, I'm not so sure." A thought occurred; he stopped walking and turned to her. "But hey, look," he said, nudging her arm gently. "Here's what I'm not doing— I'm _not_ blaming you."

The wind had picked up and blew in thick gusts. Folding her arms over her chest to keep from shivering, she gave a baseless shrug. His words were soft, almost mocking to her ears. Because whether or not he said it, she knew— and _everyone_ knew— that all the backlash the ministry was getting, all the rioting, all the violence… all of it was because she had resurrected Hugo. She deserved blame.

Scorpius read her silence.

"No, Weasel. That's not the point. _You're_ not the point. Don't you see? We both know the Ministry's excellent at covering shit up. They covered up your parents' deaths after all. And they should've covered your resurrection up before it got out to the masses."

She considered this. "They were careless then."

"Well, _yeah_ , but the press was ruthless too. Look at the panic they caused. It's the anarchy they stir up with their articles—slowly mucking the ministry's reputation up—though I reckon Shacklebolt does enough of that himself, too."

"The press has total freedom, Malfoy. They do whatever they want."

Malfoy looked at her. "Well you see the problem with that don't you?"

They walked silently for a while, Rose at a complete lack of words.

"Think about the rioters during your brother's kidnapping, Weasel. How come you lot couldn't get them under control?"

"Aurors can't attack civilians unless provoked," she answered mechanically. "The most we can do is keep them contained."

"They caused a pretty big mess though, didn't they? Reckon they had freedom to do that?"

A pause.

"What are you trying to say, Malfoy?"

"You know."

Her stomach dropped. What Scorpius had said was hard to digest, but impossible to ignore… surely he knew she could never agree with him. Yes, all the press had done was make life hard for her, but rights were still rights, weren't they? Wasn't that what her mum would say? The founder of S.P.E.W? The fiercest advocate of muggleborn rights in their post war world?

( _And dead_ , as memory hideously served her.)

And yes, Kingsley was too lenient, too diplomatic, even to such a point as to allow a town like Little Norton to exist in the first place… maybe that was the problem. And it stung. In a time when unity was vital, Kingsley Shacklebolt, a man who once held the same ideals _as her parents_ , was allowing wizarding England to fragment, grow weak. Maybe that was what stung most of all.

Rose didn't really know how to feel about it. She couldn't think. There was just so much _noise_ in her head.

* * *

 _Dad,_

 _I know you're going to get really pissed by what you're about to be told, but I've haven't got a choice._

 _I'm in Little Norton right now, with Potter and Weasley and her little brother who we just rescued from the Ordine Corvis. Anyway, it's not surprising that we pissed them off in the process and now we're sort of in a …tiff._

 _Ok, this is the part where you yell. I'm a horrible kid. I'm a right pain in the ass. How you managed to raise a son so idiotic, you'll never know._

 _I won't go into details about the trouble we're in since I don't have that much time, but the Ordine Corvis have been hunting my friends for a while. They've closed off the floo channels. Our portkey isn't working. I'm not even sure if this letter will get to you. Something really bad is about to happen, and I reckon we don't want to be here when it does._

 _We're going to need help, dad. I know you're really, really mad, but if you could come pick us up, that'd be fantastic._

 _-Scorp_

 _(Also, please don't tell mum. She'll go bonkers.)_

 _-_

 _Kovy,_

 _I told you I was going to get Hugo back and I have. Yes, I disobeyed the Head. I went behind the Ministry. I'll face the consequences for it later._

 _I'm in Little Norton right now. Something strange is happening here. I know the town isn't exactly on our list of priorities, but this may very well be why the Ordine Corvis chose to hide here. They've blocked all transportation past the threshold into the muggle world. I'm not sure how it is from the outside in, so you need to move fast. Something's about to happen. I've already seen a lot of panic and I expect I'm about to see a lot more._

 _Bring everyone._

 _-Rose_

* * *

Albus had missed something.

He realized this now, having spent half the night recovering from Hugo's deathly memory and the other half trying to make sense of it. It was the damning _noise_ ; a heightened more vibrant version of what he and Scorpius had heard at the shack. More alive, more desperate. There was almost an emotion to it, a frustration—no, anger—no, _hunger_.

Sensations had flooded his body, white-hot and freezing and everything in between. They tore at his nerves, gnawed at his innards— his body sang in confused agony all night. Invisible fingers trailed pain down the length of his neck, chest, torso, and down still… _a shudder_. He turned over burying his face in a pillow, and gave a low groan.

[Was this how it felt to die?]

And Hugo; the boy had helped Albus. Yes, pulled him over his small shoulder, and dragged him from the lakeside [their unsteady steps scuffing dirt, fumbling over each other]. Changed Albus into dry clothing somehow. Helped him into bed.

Unable to move for the longest time, Albus had lied thinking, just _thinking_ of what it all meant:

Inside his cousin's mind he'd seen….well, nothing actually. A surge of blinding light, and he'd fallen backwards. He'd been repelled but _by what_? Hugo was not trained in Occulmency.

But there was something inside his young mind that drew sharp teeth the moment it sensed Albus. Sure enough the intrusion had been aberrant, unlawful; no living being had ever been allotted knowledge of _what happened after_. That was the whole point, wasn't it? That was why Hugo, despite dying, could recall nothing. That was why wizards everywhere had gone mad for Rose's resurrection magic. The line between the Living and Dead had been crossed once now, and the force that governed both realms was looking to prevent it from happening _ever_ again.

[Had to be more careful in the future]

Then—just like Rose, Hugo had not sensed the noise. He was oblivious. It couldn't kill him because…well because he had already died? Once? He'd been desensitized in some way. Maybe.

[Shack]

[Underground]

[Same noise]

[ _Burned_ ]

Had his father been experimenting with the bounds of Death as well? Was it a spell? Had he created a spell, or perhaps uncovered a different sort of magic? But for what purpose? What had gone wrong?

[Almost like a weapon]

Was the sound what had killed him?

[Even dead?]

At this Albus felt a futility he could not understand, a despair that sent him sinking further into his sheets. Dead or alive, his father was _gone_ , and all his conjectures were nothing more than hopeful guesses.

And it frustrated him. That the only thing he felt in response was a twisted, overwhelming surge of betrayal _frustrated him_. He had so much hate. He had so much hate he must've been made of it. Hatred at being chewed up, spit out…forgotten… tossed aside like trash… _and for what?_

Perhaps this whole quest had been a hallucination, a twisted fantasy he'd concocted all on his own. If, somehow, the Master of Theatrical Deception had gone too far and deceived _himself_ ….then there had never been any hope for him to begin with. He'd been handed an impossible algorithm by an insane man, and no Perfect Solution awaited beneath fabricated truths that would've been too painful for any other psyche to handle. Except that he was Albus Potter…and his psyche had been altered years and years ago.

[Like father, like son]

There was no solace in these thoughts, and his fingers ached for his wand, his spellbooks, things he knew would give him comfort. He wanted to bury himself in magic, read until his eyes bled out of his skull. Yet every inch of his body resisted the desire to get up; head throbbed, muscles ached, legs were heavy. And there was _so much work_ to do; a health potion to finish for a very deserving boy and a plan to devise for potential murder.

Graham Paisley: the man was a nuisance, and this whole Ordine Corvis interlude had been nothing but frustrating and vague. Albus was slowly losing patience for it…along with everything else.

Rose did not help things.

 _Burning forehead met the pressure of small feminine fingers, jolting him from his hazy thoughts._

 _"Not faking then." A chuckle. "Hugo said you had fever. Says you caught it from him."_

He'd turned his head and buried it away, not wanting her to the state of him. Hugo's excuse was satisfactory, but Rose would've suspected otherwise if she'd had a clearer look. His body was in painful knots all over, something fever didn't do.

Her fingers stroked his hair, and he'd resisted the urge to lean into their touch. It was an apology for yesterday's fight, he knew. But he didn't want it. She was there to coax him, numb him with miserable affection that was sisterly or motherly [or maybe neither, he didn't know]. It didn't matter, because he didn't want it. He did not want her hands touching him then. He did not want her on his bed, and he did not want her fingers grazing his hair [no she could save all that for fucking _Scorpius_ Fucking _Malfoy_ ].

 _A hand gripped his arm. "Look-" He wrung it away, but she grabbed him again. "I'm just saying that you don't have to prove anything," she said fiercely. "You're not your father, and Graham Paisley is not Voldemort. There's no prophecy. There's no Elder Wand, no technicality that's going to save your ass. There's absolutely no reason for you to—hey are you even listening to me?!"_

 _He kept his eyes shut._

 _"For Merlin's sake! For once in your life, Albus, just once, admit that you have no clue what you're up against!"_

Obviously she was wrong.

And anyway, the concern was useless. Graham Paisley had no intentions of letting him escape and would do everything in his power to keep them all trapped there. So even if Albus was not as prepared as he'd like to be, there was no need to admit it to _her_.

Rosie Posie Rosie, with her fighting words and crumpled expressions and teeny wrists that [ _snap_ ] fit [ _snap_ ] perfectly [ _snap_ ] in his hands. She didn't care for the threat he posed, both as powerful wizard and unstable young man. No, she'd bridge their distance without reservation, desperate to make herself known to him. Snarl, kick, throw little punches, yell, sob, cling, in that precise order. Shove him then grab him, curl into his arms and bury herself against his chest. Overwhelm him with her incessant crying.

[And he was]

Lovely sister, that Rose.

[fucking pathetic]

She'd stay even if he told her to go away.

She'd just sit on his bed even if he wouldn't talk to her, just so she could be near him.

[all so hopeless]

She loved him.

She loved him.

She loved him.

[too far gone to say anything in return]

She was pure threat.

* * *

Notes:

 _Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?_ -was said by Dumbledore in DH. Cheeky old man.


	21. Fall pt 2

The night was thick and opaque, the wizarding underworld teeming with ghastly creatures. Half-breeds and gypsies and wanderers and dark-robed silhouettes gathered, bodies twisting their way through the maze of curved trees, toward the Paisley estate out in the middle of fucking nowhere. Hundreds came to watch, braving dangerous terrain to answer the call of the Crow; one mass shadow beneath his balcony.

Ants.

Hands clasped behind as if he were royalty, the cleft smile reigned as Graham Paisley watched his grey congregation assemble. Sharp eyes assessed every stony face they came into contact with. Anger, greed, desperation— _good._

He stretched his arms out benevolently.

"Why, _hello._ "

Pin-drop silence amidst the mob of hundreds.

"We're running experiments on Hugo Weasley and making very good progress on recovering the secret to his resurrection. Rest assured, my friends, I intend to share the truth with _everyone._ "

Lie. Although no one would be able to tell save one man in the crowd. The man who was not a man knew that while Graham Paisley flaunted resurrection flat in the world's face, it was _not_ a secret he possessed. With a much grander plan in motion, he had long fled Little Norton, leaving his henchmen to sort out the rest. The kidnapping was a plot that had gone wrong, but it didn't matter, because Paisley was an opportunist.

It was all very simple: Chaos was in demand. The human promised a supply.

More than that, Hugo Weasley's momentary abduction had been a ploy to see who would come after him. The desperate faces, dark and light wizards alike, that had assembled in the crowd would swallow his every word, and further on, go to do his bidding, because what choice did they have? When he promised them _life_.

Shouts broke: Are you mad? _Where is he being kept?_ The Ministry's on your heels! _You have no right to—_

He held up a silencing hand.

"A decade of change approaches, my friends," he began, grandly. "In this vital period I seek your aid—those who for too long have had their needs ignored by the Ministry of Magic. I ask you, what right do the lawmakers of the world have to stake a claim to magic itself? What right does _one petty girl_ have to possess the secret of life? Why does her brother get to live, when so many others suffer in silence? When so many of us have lost _so much_?

To the desperate commoner these were endearing words, but a sharp ear knew it was the same rhetoric used by every politician in every rallying speech ever given. Graham Paisley would take their fear – and the _hatred_ it spun – and project it onto the physical entity of his choice. In this case, it was the Ministry.

A trick as old as time itself.

"My lip…hideous, isn't it?" He paused with theatrical sorrow. "I was a child of war. My face was carved in by a Death Eater after both my parents perished in the noble fight against the Dark Lord. And my friends, I…would like to see my mother again."

More lies—he'd been _born_ with that lip and had long stopped caring for his dead mother. The only thing he may have lost in that _noble fight_ was any semblance of humanity. He could fabricate any past he wanted and none would be the wiser. Except, of course, the faceless man in the crowd.

"But you see, my friends, I do not seek vengeance for my ill fate. To the contrary, I have done everything to avoid the spilling of blood. But I would forget my conscience if I were to do nothing in spite of the realization that a conflict had become unavoidable: you must see that Camden was _necessary_. I regard the Ministry of Magic as the gravest danger not only for wizards today but for the example they set for our future. My friends, we cannot allow them to hoard what is in part ours. Knowledge must always be _shared_."

It had never been about resurrection, not really, rather the allure of it. Without allegiances, without morality, Graham Paisley was a void; blank slate. He'd say anything to get what he wanted, reach out to the upper crust of society just as he'd recruit from the desperate fringes. Purebloods, half-bloods, mudbloods—all were the same: bodies to pile under his throne.

So what did that leave, power (stolen from the ministry)? Control (in a world spiraling out of control)?

"Every generation faces its challenges. Every generation leaves a _legacy_. Let this be ours, my brothers and sisters. Together, we will be the ones to usher in a new world. A world that finally suits _us_."

There was complete silence, followed by hushed whispers. The crowd seemed entranced by the ostentatious performer, all except one hooded man, who took in the spectacle in the way one watches what it has seen a dozen times before. There was an acuity in his dead-black gaze that lingered, not settled, _never settled_ , an imperceptible intelligence behind a mask of perfected apathy.

He turned and left, cloak billowing behind him.

Then— a flicker of amusement, cracking the visage. A rough chuckle escaped his mouth.

The king wore a borrowed crown.

* * *

Somewhere during the resurrection his cousin must have cheated. It was the only solution. Of course—there had to be a reason why _Albus_ couldn't make sense of it.

What was missing: the proverbial pound of flesh.

Dark magic always had a price. _All_ magic did, in a way, even if the energy exchange wasn't readily obvious. Lily Potter had committed the ultimate sacrifice, exchanging her life for her son's [Authors of his father's many, many biographies called this the _Power of Love_ —mind fodder for the whimsical].

Therefore— if magic rested on this principle of equivalency, then the price for resurrecting a life was mathematically simple: another life.

By any sort of calculation, Rose should have _died_.

Having unfairly stolen her brother from the clutches of Death, she'd spun the principle of sacrifice that came with dark magic on its head. She would've had to negotiate Hugo's life with hers. Right? Unless… [breathe, Albus]… unless... [think, _think_ ].

Alright, alternate scenario:

Her brother's life precariously ticked away. Rose was emotional, more prone to rash behavior than usual. She dove headfirst without any clue of what would happen, of what she might encounter. The probability of failure, of _death_ didn't deter her… she must've been half-suicidal. And then—and then—

It was a fluke; sheer dumb luck.

[ _no_ ]

Rose Pose was the brightest witch of her age. Reckless, yes. Impulsive to a _fault_ , obviously, but not stupid. She had thought it all through. She must've found a glitch in the threshold between the planes that allowed her to cross back with both souls. Some sort of bypass.

[maybe]

But something must've happened along the way, collateral damage to the souls, because Hugo wasn't growing— _aging_ properly. Physical deformity spurred by unlawful magic. And Albus hadn't been able to access that memory … Hugo's mind had resisted infiltration; it had attacked _back_.

Why?

* * *

Potion fumes wafted inside his older cousin's tent.

Hugo snapped the vial open, draining the last drops of liquid luck into his mouth.

Within one day his body had reverted to its previous configuration of pain and dysfunction. Energy drained from him at a disturbing, dizzying pace. Knees wobbled. Clinging to tabletop, he felt the humiliating expansion of wetness around his crotch. Piss. _Blood._

Pinpoints of tears jabbed the corner of his eyes.

"Hurts, hurts. Alb— _shit_ , that h—"

"Almost done." The cousin poured him a cup of frothy-blue liquid. "Here."

Hugo drank, the dozen pains consuming his body combining into a familiar dull ache. Legs buckled in relief. Albus turned allowing him to check to see if everything below was functioning correctly. After several moments of awkward fidgeting, the younger boy decided that yeah, his balls were ok, and hoped that it meant he was going to live. This was enough cause for celebration; Albus lit a cigarette and took a long drag.

"Good potion practice for me," he said.

They listened to the early cawing of birds, the day dawning. Hugo lifted himself onto the tabletop, now seated eye level with his cousin, who passed him the rest of his cigarette to finish off. Outside they heard Rose, having just woken, drowsily fumble around the campsite recasting the protective charms. Hugo took quick anxious puffs, aware that at any moment she could walk in and put an end to their male solidarity.

Albus stared back at him, amused.

"Tickle your fancy?"

He coughed: "Yeah."

"Shitty liar, just like your sister." The mouth lolled into a smirk. "And besides, it's an _acquired_ taste."

"I could acquire it," Hugo shot, the hoassness of his voice giving him away. A brow raised—the cousin held out his palm and without further objection, an embarrassed Hugo, still-wheezing, surrendered it over.

Albus put the same end back into his mouth. Sharing cigarettes— an action that was alarmingly intimate for two boys when one of them was Albus Potter. _Boys like us._ He closed his eyes, exhaling then, looking like he was floating somewhere afar.

"So how are you feeling from yesterday?" Hugo queried.

"Better." His words were vague, syrupy with smoke. "Alive."

Hugo nodded, hit with a sudden pang of understanding.

Albus looked drained, his face paler than usual. He'd slept all through yesterday while Hugo had impatiently waited for him to wake up, relishing a chorus of verbal thank yous for how he'd _dragged him from the lakeside_ and _covered for him with Rose_. Sadly, there had been no such reception. With two cigarettes and minimal self-grooming, the older wizard had thrown himself into work, acting as if nothing had happened.

He now sat, open books of various magical titles splayed out in front of him. Focused eyes trailed information line-by-line, page-by-page, as his left hand tirelessly jotted notes. Every so often he'd stop to cough into his sleeve, lending Hugo false raised hope that he'd actually become human, before plunging right back into work.

"Albus. Could I tell you something…erm…personal?"

The boy flipped a page, and paused. "Go on."

"First you have to promise not to tell my sister."

Albus looked up at him. His mouth twisted oddly. "Promise."

"When you invaded my mind the other night, something weird happened to me. It's hard to explain. I felt…angry, except maybe it wasn't me…" Hugo trailed off, before swallowing his nerves. "I wanted to see the memory too, but something pulled it away from me."

Albus leaned in, listening closely. He looked like he'd been told more than what was said.

"The Healers say the spell Rose used to bring me back stunted my growth, but I'm not sure that's all there is to it. I know there are things she's not telling me. I know she thinks it's for my own good. But I need to know…" The small boy cast a nervous glance toward the tent opening. He lowered his voice. "I know you're looking for answers and I hope you find them. So you can tell me too."

Albus' eyes scoured every movement on his face.

"Thank you for sharing this with me, Hugo," he said. "Of course I will."

Hugo nodded, sliding off the bench to land on wobbly knees. Then, a thought occurred; his face flushed. "Also-thanks-for-not-letting-me-die," he spoke quickly, and engulfed the older boy in a hug.

There was a palpable moment of confusion, before a careful hand pawed his hair back.

* * *

Strange, and very curious.

Hugo seemed to think he'd saved his life, which Albus hadn't. For all his talent at magic, healing was still a largely uncharted branch—in fact he'd given Hugo nothing more than what he could manage in such short time, a potion to relieve his physical symptoms. Somehow this had worked, much like the felix felicis. It had shown how unusually _resilient_ the small boy was, as if he were running natural luck of his own. First, by surviving with little or no food in weeks of captivity; and then, by managing to stay alive with the most extreme physical injuries. Hugo Weasley was malfunctioning but _not dying_. Albus was the slightest bit relieved but perplexed by this assessment.

Further investigation was necessary.

 _It's hard to explain. I felt…angry, except maybe it wasn't me…_

[and this]

 _I wanted to see the memory too, but something pulled it away from me._

[this was new]

 _I know there are things she's not telling me._

What was Rose Pose hiding from her brother?

* * *

Days passed for her like labored breaths: one became two, achingly became three. It was beyond her how Mum, Dad, and Uncle Harry survived _months_ camping together like this in random forests. More than the cold, mosquitos, complete and utter lack of privacy that came from three young adults (and one Hugo) cohabiting the same few square-meters of space, it was the constant pressure of being _found_ – the fever of dread met with mundanity.

It was dark and Hugo was fast asleep inside his tent. She sat near the burning logs, blanket draped over herself which did nothing to stop the cold, spooning soggy cereal into her mouth. Food storage low: little puffed flakes were breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

"Just sent a patronus to my dad." Scorpius came to sit beside her. The fire cast shadows, exaggerating the bags under his eyes. "In case the owls don't …anyway, thought you should probably send one too."

"Good idea." With a mechanical nod, she pulled her wand and stared at it. She blinked several times, her gaze unsteady. Sensing something was wrong, Scorpius reached over and wrapped her hand.

"Or y'know, I could just do it."

Rose shot a tight smile. Words of gratitude choked, in the back of her throat, when a voice interrupted them:

"Since when do you need your hand held?"

Albus, who had been sitting on the other end of the campsite, reading by wand light, had fixed a look in _her_ direction. "You can bring back the dead." His book snapped shut. "Surely a witch with that sort of talent can cast her _own_ patronus."

It was a compliment, quietly indignant and much _too_ observant—her cousin's fondness could be downright vicious at times.

Fire crackled in the tense space between them.

"Maybe she's tired. Ease up, Potter."

The sharp gaze darted away from her, sizing the blond quickly before dismissing. "Thank you. I think my cousin can speak for herself."

Rose stared at dancing flames, maintaining impartial silence.

"Your cousin, is that it? Leaning a bit heavily on kinship today, aren't we?"

"Is that a problem Malfoy?"

"Just think it's a bit ironically sappy for you."

"Wouldn't that be the prerogative of family?" Albus shot back, to her surprise. "Of two people who are close enough to be," a sneer, "siblings."

Biting sarcasm laced every syllable as he pronounced the word.

Rose squirmed, perturbed by the _stupid stupid_ male posturing—knowing it was all part of his ploy to get under her skin. Damn. "Stop." Expectant gazes swiveled towards her. "It's just…" She swallowed. "I never really learned how to conjure a, erm, patronus."

A pause followed this ego-sinking confession.

"No kidding?" Scorpius said, bemused. "What about auror training?"

"It's not like I passed with flying colors."

Truth was—she told them—it had been frustrating, harder than anything else she'd had to learn. Happy memories had slipped from her focus like sand through fingers.

"And yet you can bring back the dead?"

She squeezed her eyes, put off by her cousin—no, _sibling's_ annoying perceptiveness.

"Don't be an ass."

"Seeing through shoddy deflection doesn't make me an ass, Rose Pose. We don't all fall in love with your lies, you know."

It was a loaded thing to say. While nearly impossible to detect in the night, Scorpius turned a shade darker. She covered her own flustered embarrassment by leveling her cousin a hard glare. "What would you know of love anyway?" she said quietly.

A muscle in his jaw twitched. "Absolutely nothing."

"Figured," she sneered.

Now enraged, green eyes flickered downward, to that jacket of his which she'd worn for five days straight now, silently demanding that she remove it at once. A cruel and bitter move even by Albus' standards.

She turned back to the fire, hurt panging through her chest. _He doesn't love you. Why do you keep trying?_ An arm came around her, and when she glanced up, Scorpius gave a soft and consoling sort of smile. His fingers brushed hair off her shoulder. The knowledge that her cousin was watching stirred a form of resistance inside her.

She pulled Scorpius by the collar and crashed her lips against his, pouring every ounce of her frustration into the kiss.

Dazed for several seconds—the blond clearly hadn't expected such a bold reaction. Then, heat swarmed her stomach as he tugged her closer, winding an arm around her waist. It was an eager, senseless meshing of mouths. Her head buzzed. Her heart ached.

From behind, green eyes stared in stunned surprise.

Albus looked confused at first, and she saw the _flicker_ of outrage in his expression—but the surge was quickly beaten down. His face readjusted itself, turning cold as ice. He turned back to his book.

He flipped pages, muttering to himself as if he were alone.

And that was that.

* * *

 _Of course._

It struck him later that night when he was angry with Rose and couldn't sleep. On some level he knew his feelings of betrayal were unjustified. And that his behavior was erratic and his intentions obscure and then his thoughts… and he thought that he truly had gone insane. But he did not know how to reconcile himself. He felt lost and unlike himself. In a violent sort of mania, he paced back and forth, focusing only on the resurrection.

 _Of course, of course, of course._

She had forgotten that he'd read all the same books as her. Heard all the same bedtime stories. And that it was only a matter of time before he figured it out—although he supposed he had _Malfoy_ to thank for that.

[not the time]

[focus, Albus]

[ _breathe_ ]

He lit a cigarette and assessed the anomaly his cousin has dropped: she couldn't cast a patronus. Many people couldn't, so why was this out of the ordinary? Because Rose was more clever than she was lovestruck for any hapless blond boy and his father had _told_ him—he couldn't remember when or where but sometime meshed in between all the other haunting parables of childhood—about that particular condition of dark magic. _Horcrux_ magic. It had always been strange to his ears, hearing his father speak of magic as if it had essence. A human soul that could be tainted, corrupted. _Severed_. Maybe it was because Albus had always seen magic as a weapon, a tool by which to achieve an end rather than an entity. Magic was spurred by aptitude, mental prowess. But feeling?

Certainly, Rose had managed something extraordinary and rather enviable, upturning one the most fundamental laws of magic for her brother.

[What was it again? Oh yes.]

 _Tamper with the deepest mysteries — the source of life, the essence of self — only if prepared for consequences of the most extreme and dangerous kind._

But her accomplishment was not unprecedented.

Voldemort couldn't cast a patronus either

So what had happened? What had Rose done that had evaded him _so long_?

[breathe, Albus.]

Only the unthinkable.

[think, _think_ ]

Alright, again. From the beginning:

In those last few hours she snuck Hugo out of the hospital, took him off the oxygen tanks. By speeding up his already-inevitable death, she had _killed her own brother_.

The price for making a horcrux was murder.

Making him a horcrux would explain the stunted growth. It explained why his mind shut Albus out—horcruxes react violently when threatened. It would also explain why he couldn't remember dying—certain memories must've been lost with the part of his soul that got severed and never crossed over. Half-dead, half-alive, Hugo had one foot planted in both realms.

There it was, the bypass.

She severed Hugo's soul bringing him back and used horcrux magic to bind it to his body. She'd killed him—which _allowed_ her to satisfy the conditions for _both_ the resurrection and the horcrux. She'd used the paradox of his death to save his life. It was… _genius_.

And there was more too. Something else happened when she crossed the thres—

* * *

Somewhere in Stratford, half-past two AM, several muggles had stopped to watch the skies. Boys on bicycles halted, staring in confusion. There was a blaze of color—lightning?

They saw movement, streaks of light falling in the distance. But they vanished.

Or did they?

"What was that?" One of them awed.

Thunder rolled.

"Storm's coming!" some taxi driver, leaning from his window, hollered out to them. "Best be heading home boys!"

* * *

Somewhere in Little Norton near the outskirts, half-past two AM, a group of dozen boys had stopped. They heard the alarming cawing of crows and looked up, drawing their wands. No, not _Ordine Corvis_ —these were the normal ones. Birds flew in patterned groupings past the magical boundary, beyond the lake over the large ridge crest.

They watched the birds vanish from their sight, the sky a mix of blazing orange with growing splashes of purple. Except it wasn't time for dawn. It was pitch black night. So if it wasn't the sun then—

Not toward. _Away_. The birds were flying away.

From what?

Their heads turned and they stared at the spreading light in the sky.

Movement followed, something falling, growing closer and _closer_ —the whistling acceleration of a missile. The shrillness grew until it was painful to the point of deafening, and they clasped hands over their ears—

The outlet of a dozen unanimous screams as a flash of white light struck nearby earth.

* * *

Her eyes snapped open, heart pounding against her ribcage.

A haze of smoke.

She coughed, lungs desperately suctioning air. Blood pulsed at her temples. Thighs were aching, charred from fire – _the blast_ , but she forced her damaged body up. Her vision blurred from moving too quickly, and she swerved, staggering to grip the skeletal remains of the tent. Clutching at a white-hot pole with both hands, gaze steadied, wandering over broken trees. There was dead stillness all around her.

She trailed flame-ravaged grass until something caught her eye. Something sticking out from the ashen tusks of fallen trees.

Brown. Muddy. Curls.

Her legs moved on their own accord, feet fumbling over one another.

She bent down, fingers splayed, digging into scorched dirt. She stood up, and pulled at tree-truck, attempting to break him loose; legs pedaled and her body jerked backwards.

Hugo wasn't moving. She lifted his small body onto her lap, wound her fingers around the bony wrist and pressed for a pulse. She buried her face against his filthy scalp, and swallowed a sob, and kissed him again and again.

 _Please. God, please—_

"Unconscious. Not dead." A hoass voice spoke.

She turned to find Albus, eyes bloodshot, damaged frame leaning awkwardly against a tree, clothes stained and torn in a thousand places. His left arm hung limp to his side, battered.

"Hugo's not dead because he _can't_ die. Am I correct?"

For a moment, she just stared.

Her shoulders tensed. "This isn't the time fo—"

"As long as his body's intact," he cut her off. "The only thing that destroys a living horcrux is irreparable damage to the physical container… I'm sure you knew that."

Her heart throbbed in her chest. She pulled her brother's limp body closer to hers. _One pulse, two…_ "Right," she said, breathing relief. "Where's Scorpius?"

"I'm— _oh fuck_." A voice came from somewhere, followed by the snapping sound of twigs. He'd tripped. Noises of rustling movement followed, before the blond head appeared from behind them. His eyes fell to unconscious Hugo splayed in her lap and widened.

"He's fine," she said. "You ok?"

Scorpius nodded his weary head. He wasn't as badly injured as her or Albus, looking like he'd dodged most of the blast. Her hand reached to touch the bruise on his face, but instead slipped around his neck, pulling him into a desperate hug.

Albus watched them from behind.

He looked away when they pulled apart.

"So what the hell was that – some sort of crater?" Scorpius coughed, taking in the tarnished campsite. Rose glanced up at the flashing sky, her insides swelling with an anguish that she did not understand and that frightened her. It took several blinks for her vision to focus, and then the realization hit her.

 _The bombings at Camden._

"No." The moan escaped her mouth. "It's happening all over again."

Something in the sky flickered and the three of them leapt to their feet. They watched as a ball of flame manifested midair, growing larger and brighter as though drawing power from the troubled heavens, a vengeful god. Flames reflected in stricken eyes as it dropped, hurtling down at near distance, growing faster and _faster_ until –they heard the falling roar and _crash_. The ground vibrated beneath their feet, sending tremors of fear up her spine. A thick smoky gust of wind blew consuming their lungs, their vision; a yawn from the dark universe.

Light returned after mere moments and Rose found her heart pounding against her ribcage. Were the Ordine Corvis on broomsticks casting individual spells, or was this the work of something grander? Anxiety kept a hard grip on her insides. The scope and magnitude of this magic was unlike anything she'd ever read about.

"Do we have any potions for Hugo?" she asked, voice urgent.

"No, everything's gone," Albus muttered.

Scorpius looked at him too. "What about your arm. Is it bad?"

"It's fine."

"Roll up your sleeve then."

"I don't need your help, Malfoy," came the acidic reply.

Eyes determined, Scorpius trudged at him. "Just—" grabbed his arm. "—let me—" forcibly yanked up his sleeve. "— _look_." A begrudging glare as the young healer traced fingers over his wounds. Rose could see the arm was black from being so badly burned, but her cousin didn't even flinch at the physical contact.

Just then Scorpius turned to her, expression grim.

"Is there a spell? Can we fix it?" she said.

His forehead etched. "Not without an immediate grafting potion."

"I feel fine," Albus interrupted.

Scorpius turned back to him. "That's because your nerves are fried. You don't feel a fucking thing," he muttered. "Not that that's anything new."

Albus lifted his chin. "I can hold my wand."

"Well _yes_ , but—"

The roaring started again, ferocious like that of a storm, only somewhere _closer_. They clasped hands over their ears.

"We can't stay here!" Rose shouted over the noise. "We'll head for town, try to find shelter!"

Scorpius nodded, and Albus cast one last dark look at their ravaged campsite.

An alarming bright orange swelled in the skies, unlike anything she'd ever seen before, as they moved. She led in alert silence, navigating their path through the maze of broken trees. Scorpius held limp Hugo over his shoulder while Albus trailed behind, a permanent hand on his wand. Both shot glances her way every so often. Either there had been several blasts or one had had a colossal impact, enough to destroy the entire right wing expanse of woodlands behind the town. Animal carcasses lay splayed, littering the ashen plain: splattered blood, burnt hides, roasted appendages.

Then—an ailing, whimpering deer, back two legs bent outwards; broken.

Her insides squirmed. Albus lifted his wand and delivered a beam of green, putting it out of its misery.

The sight was unbearable for Scorpius, who immediately bent over and began hacking. Puke and saliva dribbled down his chin, and he quickly wiped it before staggering back up. He rubbed his swollen eyes as if trying to unsee the dead deer; but Rose didn't flinch, didn't even blink. Her cousin's penchant for murder was old news now, paling in extremity to the thousands of deaths already undertow.

Because in that moment, the enemy was clear: Graham Paisley.

His whole plot had gone over their heads, and now they would suffer the consequence.

They didn't linger, traveling faster now, feet hammering against dirt. Fear pounded at her. They weren't able to fly or apparate or leave the magical confines of Little Norton any other way, which left them with no other option but to head to town and see if someone had figured a way out. It was a futile hope but the only hope they had.

Another explosion nearby. The earth quaked and their bodies rolled, staggering—she yelped—and crashed. Landing on her knees, clenched jaw sliced tongue; the taste of copper flooded her mouth. She swallowed blood and sobbed and held her breath as smoke swept by in sharp, burning gusts. Albus and Scorpius fought the violent fit of coughing that followed.

A sphere of light floated right over their heads now, blurring her vision with its sheer intensity. It was as if the sun had risen out of nowhere. For a moment, she just stared, a strange, ethereal feeling taking hold of her.

Her heart panicked when it dropped.

"RUN," Scorpius hollered.

There was nowhere to go. Nowhere to dodge. On impulse, _seconds_ from being burned alive, she pointed her wand above and cast a bright spark—erupting into a _shield_. Light exploded from the crater's sheer impact, white sparks splashing over its edges. Scorching heat infiltrated the air. _Hot, hot, too hot_. They screamed. Her arm felt seconds from snapping—pain gave way. As she fell back, Albus quickly pointed his wand and held the shield.

He was able to manage it three seconds longer, enough for all the sparks to die down, before falling backwards from exhaustion. Sweat plastered dark strands of hair to his forehead, and he held his arm close to him as though pained. The tendon deep burns had weakened his abilities. They lay, all four side-by-side, on the sole patch of dirt unlit by fire. They gasped for air.

"I've never seen anything like this." She gulped, tears she wasn't even aware she'd been crying streaming down her cheeks. She turned over, her sides aching with fatigue, to look at the ash-covered mound that was her brother. Two fingers pressed against the hollow space besides his adam's apple. The beating of his pulse managed to steady hers.

"Wonder how they're doing it," Albus coughed from somewhere behind, slowly crawling back to his feet.

Her vision shook as the ground trembled every few seconds, as through the interval between drops was diminishing. She lied with forehead pressed to dirt, as though willing the rocking to calm down. When, at last, the world came to a halt, she stood up.

Turning, she saw Scorpius still laying there, face buried in burnt leaves. Her insides flared.

"Hey," she croaked. Her heart broke when she heard strangled crying.

"Malfoy, get up," Albus snapped. "We don't have time for this."

"Fuck you Potter," came the muffled sob. "Burn in hell."

(It was the deer, she knew.)

"No one's going to burn." She wiped her own wet cheeks. "And we're not going anywhere without you, Scorpius. So please stand up."

He didn't move.

Her stomach knotted as another streak of light cleaved from the sky.

"Please. Think of your mum and—" Her voice was swallowed in the roar of a nearby crash. With an exasperated sound, Albus pulled his wand and cast a stinging hex at his ass; Scorpius shot to his feet with a yelp.

"The fuck?" he barked, his voice hoass against the surging wind. "Are you even _human_?"

Albus tucked his wand away, lifting Hugo over his own shoulders. He moved past them, his footsteps swift against the rattling earth.

"Don't slow me down," he roared behind him.

-

Flames twisted in the air, pitch-fork tails of a thousand devils. The chillness of the town air was devoured by scorching blazes of the vicious element.

Their footsteps pounded against pavement.

Debris exploded as the hall building came tumbling down to their right, half-melted metal crashing against wreckage. Survivors, stragglers shrieked. Rose ducked, dodging the unhinged door that came shooting at her. Lunging forward, knees skid against stone; her heart pounded so hard she worried it would burst out of her chest. She heard a shout of _fucking_ _ **move it**_ _, Malfoy!_ as Albus, still carrying her brother, went swerving after the fallen blond.

Another blast from behind— light exploded and she lost sight of all three boys. Her insides panicked. Something hard slammed against her head and her vision tripled. She lost balance and blindly scoured ground. Blur-bright flames erupted in front.

Her arm, pulled over a shoulder—a woman being a hero. Rose croaked a 'thank you' that was lost in the roar of nearby crash. The woman staggered them through the haze of smoke. Rose slipped in and out of darkness, thoughts drifting between Hugo and the others.

 _Please be okay._

Her body came to an abrupt stop, hitting something hard and cold. Her aching head lifted and eyes made contact with eyes, white and hollow; the sallow features of a lolling head.

 _"Eurgg!_ " A jolt backwards; legs pedaled and her body landed in black slick. Stricken eyes wandered, taking in the scattered piles of human refuse. The naked or tattered, burned, blackened beyond recognition. Skulls with eyeballs hanging from the sockets.

Living hands hoisted her up by the looked around at several sooty faces that were still - _thank Merlin_ \- attached to their bodies. They greeted Rose with the same apprehensive look she wore.

They were in the base of what looked like someone's half-destroyed house; a small cramped space. Streams of stunned people kept shuffling in, ghost-like figures like that of an old time photograph. Sobs sounded from every corner, prayers uttered under breaths. She looked around and saw filthy bodies huddled against the walls, wrapped in blankets, knees shaking. Strips of scorched skin hung from bones like ribbons. Several people crouched around a dead body. Couples clung to each other. A freckled boy of Hugo's waif-like size stared stonily into the ground (her gut clenched). Two young dark-skinned girls held their grandmother's injured arm. The aged man and woman beside her comforted their wailing kids. A blonde woman to her left gave a pained groan, large shrapnel protruding from the mangled wound in her thigh.

Those not injured ran out to help stragglers while others held protective shields over the half-eaten building. And still others…. she moved closer to see; wizards shooting charms at the slit barrier in the stone-wall: The passageway out of Little Norton. Her heart sank. It didn't look like their efforts were making a difference.

"Move back!"

Just then—wizards swept in from all sides knocking her backwards, blinding her to what was happening. She heard the shrieks and loud _fall_ ; Blinding light infiltrated the small cramped space, followed quickly by smoke. Then, she heard cheering.

One of those craters had hit the barrier.

And the passageway was open – _open_.

"It won't hold for long! Go, go now!" A maternal-looking woman shoved her forward—Rose raced blindly, her knees rattling. Her heart screamed in relief when she caught sight of the boys in front: Scorpius was already there, holding her brother, and Albus was making his way.

Desperate energy flooded her veins. She swerved, feet _slamming_ against dirt. She staggered over wreckage, circumvented a burning crater-sized bulge. Some runners sped past her, while others stayed back to help the elderly and children. Rose caught sight of several parents slowly dragging their children and her insides squirmed – _they wouldn't make it_. A badly-injured young man limped along to her right.

Rose grasped his arm and put it around her own neck.

He thanked her, swallowing relieved tears. She gave a nod and propelled them faster.

Survivors at the barrier stood cheering, pulling people through as they came. Several hands reached out to grab the young man; then her.

Then—

 _"Help!"_

Her neck twisted in horror.

It was the boy from earlier, the freckled waif, stuck back in wreckage. His leg was caught in the jaw-like broken glass window crawling out of the battered edifice.

Somewhere deep inside: an impulsive _tick-tick-tick_.

She made a blind dash backwards, blood-stained tears streaming her face.

 _Merlin help me_.

Sounds pounded against her eardrums but paled to the painful banging inside her chest. Sheets of fire outlined her shaky vision. She slowed to half-point with a gasp, her thighs burning from exhaustion, when two hands grabbed her arms from behind; Albus flipped and slammed her against the wall of a crumbling bookshop.

"Have you completely lost it?" he roared, eyes burning. "You were almost out, and you turned. I saw you. Why would you…"

His gaze followed hers towards the stuck boy, and his mouth curled. "What did I tell you about heroes, Rose? Heroes are stupid. Heroes get themselves killed—"

"I don't care what you think! Stop telling me what I can and can't do!" She twisted against his grip, half-yelling, half-crying now. "Stop trying to be the boss of me!"

The brows raised. He opened his mouth to respond, when somewhere behind—a _crash_. Time must've slowed as orange sparks hovered in the air. Breath suctioned out of her lungs as she stared at flame warring metal, hissing smoke. Much too quickly, the large building began to cave in. The young boy opened his mouth to cry out in anguish as wreckage collapsed over him. She fought against her cousin's iron hold. _Too late._ The words choked in the back of her throat.

 _No, no, no…_

Her legs gave out; Albus kept her hoisted up, arms gripped at waist. He pressed a dizzying kiss to her temple. She could feel blood pulse inside her head; vision blurred by smoke; she coughed. He buried his head in crook of her neck, his breath warm and fierce against her skin, and kissed her there as well. She gasped his name, and this alarmed him enough to pull away.

"Get _away_ of me." She fought him between fits of angry sobs. "All the world's ever done is piss on me! And you've never given a damn about it! Why now?!"

He stepped back, perplexed. He opened his mouth, then closed it. His eyes flared.

Then came the wand, pointed at her throat. The silent threat hung between— _come willingly or be dragged_. He wasn't about to leave without her.

They glowered in a dead heat stand-off.

Thunderous shaking from overhead broke the façade. Albus grabbed her wrist and pulled her through the crumbling doorway of the shop, ducking them down beneath the panes. Recollecting their breaths, they sat and watched from the cracks in the barred windows as flame devoured hulking metal outside. The wreckage had begun to smoke vigorously. She followed her cousin's grim gaze toward the slit at distance—the barrier had re-formed around it.

Their way out was gone.

"We'll wait until another blast hits and breaks the barrier," he spoke through pants.

Her mouth turned dry. Running a long unprotected stretch like that—it was _sheer suicide_.

Albus fixed her a stern glare. "No heroics this time."

"You're the one that came chasing after me."

"Well Malfoy didn't look particularly inclined," he shot back.

"I wouldn't want him to." Her voice came out hoarse. "It's madness."

Somewhere nearby the earth was struck in a vibrant collapse, impact rippling through the broken down shop. Light short-circuited as smoke consumed the air. Scattered points of light shone through the cracks in the windows.

In the darkness, she felt his body scoot closer.

"What's it like then, death?"

Closing her eyes, she tried to breathe. "Not right now—"

"If this is it, then I _need_ to know—"

"No, you don't. You have no fucking clue what you need," she lashed back, jaw clenched. His response was a blink. She swallowed exasperation. "Fine. Death. Crossing over. It messes with you. It makes you hollow. It…sterilizes you."

Albus took a moment to process this.

"Children are a nuisance. Hardly a loss."

 _Insensitive prick_. She delivered a hard shoulder shove. "I knew the price," she continued, bitterly. "What I was giving up when I chose Hugo. When you mess with the bounds of death, you lose your shot at a normal life. I figured… it's better to hold on to family you have than...you know… hope for a new one."

His mouth twitched. "All for family."

"What else is there?"

"The quest for higher knowledge. The mysteries of time and space. Magic. "

Laughter choked out of her mouth, reverberated through every cell in her body. She couldn't help but relish the absurdity. Here they were: in a burning city, inches from their deaths, and Albus wanted to spend these potentially last few moments talking about _higher knowledge_.

Fine, then.

"When I was…on the other side…I saw something. Someone."

"God?"

A blink. She doubted her cousin believed in anything, but maybe it _had_ to be asked.

"No, there was a _man_. I thought he was a dream. He was beautiful but in a sinister way. Like he wasn't human. And his _hands_ …." she trailed off, unsettled. "He was just floating there, looked like he was sleeping, and I think when I broke through…"

Silence stretched in the meager light.

"And what?" he asked, impatient.

"It's a blur, I don't know…" She shot a nervous look out a crack in the barred windows. The barrier was still closed.

When she turned, Albus was staring at her, green eyes wide. "Rose…what did you _wake_?"

"I—" The words died in her throat as incandescent flames erupted from the windows, scattering fragmented glass and debris. Eyes clenched, head ducked, she heard a pained groan beside her: Albus, sleeve rolled, a sizable fragment of glass was imbedded in his burnt arm. Alarmed, she pulled him to her and guided his head down against her shoulder.

"The next adventure." A sharp exhale as she held him still, pulling out the shard. "One of my namesakes said… something…can't remember which one right now."

She cast a quick healing charm, watching blood trickle down his blackened flesh in bright rings. "Albus."

"Hm."

"Albus Dumbledore. He said it," she whispered. "'To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.'"

"Right." The wounded hand snatched at the air. She grabbed it and his fingers intertwined with hers. "You should've told me. About Hugo. I could've assisted you."

"You would've helped me break every law of magic and turn my brother into a horcrux in order to narrowly save his life?"

"Yes."

Her voice broke. "You realize that's barking mad."

"Rose Pose." A chuckle against her collarbone. "Has it occurred to you that I am _barking mad_?"

Her insides throbbed: It wasn't a joke, nor was it meant to be endearing. His voice, low and hoass, held the confession of a sinner. In truth she'd probably always known her cousin was deranged. But _that_ had never been the point of it.

 _Mad enough to die with you._

 _Just as mad as you._

He moved closer then, or maybe it was her, close enough that she could drink in the familiar contours of his face, memorize the cuts and scrapes. Green eyes stared back as though doing the same. Rose felt something tighten in her stomach. Normal people didn't chase each other into death zones, or upturn the dead. _No one_ pulled suicidal shit like that, not even out of love. Except maybe, the truly fucked up.

 _Fears, not fantasies._

If fear was the thing keeping them apart…

"Albus," she tried, through a held breath. She cupped his face in her hands, tracing a thumb over his bruised cheek. His expression flared. A risky move. "Don't, _don't_." She sighed. "It's _me_ , Al. I—" He dodged her lips as she leaned in, as if suddenly struck by the absurdity of being so close to such a familiar face. He staggered to his feet. She stood up too.

Moments passed in palpable tension.

"Albus listen—"

"No."

"At least just let me—"

" _No_."

Tears crystallized at the ends of her eyes. "Can we talk about it later then?" she asked, a little desperately. "Once we're out of here? Please?"

He didn't respond, stepped away so his face was masked by the passing smoke, and somehow looked smaller for it, less imposing. It left in her a dull ache.

They turned just as wind and smoke blew in, heat assaulting her face. Terror struck in black fragments. The ground shook. When the smoke cleared they saw—the barrier was open.

"Move!" he roared.

They ran into the open, adrenaline coursing through her veins. Another crash in the distance and her whole body flinched. Quickly swerving—Albus clasped hands on her shoulders and made her duck. She shrieked as sparks of light exploded overheard. Not a bomb, _hexes_. Albus grabbed her arms, wheeling her around so she was safeguarded by his body. He pulled his wand, mouth curled, and cast a shield engulfing them both. The light dulled and she saw men— _Crows_. The dark robed wizards swept in and there was a frenzy of spells and movements.

One lunged at Rose, who gave a shriek as he pulled her down by the hair. They rolled on the ground, jabbing elbows and legs. Hands wrapped her neck, bent on strangling, but she kneed him in the ribcage. She pulled away and pointed her wand, hands shaking.

 _Petrificus totalus._

The body fell, swallowed up by the growing wreckage.

She swallowed a breath and quickly assessed the area. Another lay dead, face half mutilated by fire; Albus had killed him quickly. Over her shoulder, her cousin was latched in combat with the last member.

 _"Crucio."_

Rose watched the menacing beam hit Albus square in the chest and….nothing? He didn't even flinch. To her surprise, the attacker gave a wide grin.

"It _is_ him."

Albus didn't react. He aimed his wand, the flash of green reflecting in his eyes.

That was that.

Swallowing her shock, she met his quick nod. They ran, her legs ached, desperate to outrun the spreading infernos. Albus lingered behind her to cast a shield to block a swerve of flame. In their peripheral she saw more black-robed wizards. Dammit. Albus pushed her forward and she turned in confusion.

"Go! I'm right behind you!"

She nodded and with dizzy limbs raced to the nearest cover, her insides warring between fear and relief. Ducking through the doorway, she turned and her mouth fell.

Albus was locked in duel with three other wizards.

"Run!" she cried.

"Stay right there," he ordered, not turning around.

He'd known she wouldn't listen to him; just as she made a move to run back, a shield erupted blockading the way. Rose hexed and kicked at it. Bastard, she thought angrily. Don't try to be a hero, he'd said. Fucking hypocrite. The fuck if she was going to leave without him.

Albus threw a silver hex at the wizard that absorbed into his shield. He was handling himself okay but Rose knew he wouldn't last long with that arm. It was only a matter of time… his next defensive counter-hex slipped, giving the wizards ample time to ambush him. A stream of blue hit his chest, and he flew backwards into rubble.

"Albus!" she screamed, but he didn't stir.

The roofing crumbled overhead, large blocks of cemented brick falling. Smoke thickened the air. Spots scattered across her vision. Then she heard the _snap_ of something, a bone. Next thing she knew, she was on the ground squirming in pain. Her mouth opened to let out a strangled sob.

Then the ceiling exploded.

* * *

Her eyes fluttered open to meet a dozen unfamiliar faces.

Heartbeat panicked as lights began snapping. Voices overlapped:

Rose Weasley! _Ressurectionist!_ Survived the bombing? _Your brother!_ Did you uncover the Ordine Corvis? _Can you look here?_ On your own! _For the paper—_

"Get out!" bellowed a voice from behind.

It was the Head, in all his towering, scar-faced glory. Reporters begrudgingly collected their things and shuffled out at his command. _Vultures!_ He slammed the door, grumbling to himself, before turning to her with a slightly menacing geniality.

 _How did I—_

The words caught in her throat. Hands moved to grip her throat – _bandaged_. Frantic eyes darted around taking in the bland hospital room, the various potion drips hooked to parts of her body. Her stomach sank.

The Head pulled up a chair beside her. "You took quite a beating, Weasley," he said. "Since you're of age, I don't qualify anymore as your _legal_ guardian …of course being the Head of Law Enforcement has many undeniable perks. St. Mungo's staff may argue it but as it stands, I _am_ the closest thing you have to family."

Fear bolted through her legs.

"Hugo," she wheezed.

"Right. Your brother." To her horror, the Head gave a _reassuring_ smile. "I forgot. No, he's _fine_ , Weasley. Looks a hell of a lot better than you." He eyed her with something like pity. "And the blond one that kept trying to sneak in here was discharged a few hours ago. Dragged out by the ear by his father – _Draco Malfoy_ , of all people. What peculiar taste you have in men's sons. I know romance holds a certain charm in adolescence, but that's a fling you can permanently kiss good bye.

"Now, your world is about to drastically change. You're about to become a woman, so the time for childish shenanigans is over. Womanhood, all metaphorically speaking, since I have no clue how badly your body was damaged in the fire. But no need to think about that now, no. The good news is that I haven't _fired_ you for going behind my back."

He stopped to look oddly pleased with his joke, before turning back to her.

"Why do you think that is?"

As she started to form syllables, he cut her off.

"Well as it turns out, your stunt really benefits us in the end, girl. Kingsley's taking the heat for what happened at Little Norton. Who knew a couple hundred deaths were all it took to rile people up? Rebellion is all very exciting you know. I watch it from my window because I don't have to do a damn thing." He paused for effect.

Rose visibly flinched, as he gave another _reassuring_ smile.

"Nothing for you to worry about, Weasley. Governments flip themselves up and down all the time but nothing really changes. What's important is that when the dust settles, you and I will have job security. Even more importantly, the press will make us look _good_. Everyone loves a survivor story, even better when we can squeeze in a few mentions of heroism. We'll play up the traumatized orphan angle of course. Dark lords are lacking these days so this really is the next best thing." He paused, and leant in. "On a more personal note, I'm proud to see you following in my footsteps… you really held your own out there."

He stood, giving her shoulder an awkward clap. "So rest up, you've earned it. We'll reheass before the interview."

As he turned to leave, her hand grabbed his sleeve.

"Another one," she croaked. His brows raised.

"There was someone else with you? Shame…no, Weasley. You were the only survivor they found. You really should consider yourself lucky."

* * *

"I think that'll be it for today, Mr. Walker."

I blinked. It was early – normally I stayed well past the hours of decency, probing questions and making absurd speculations – but today I made no argument. It was her will, and after all, it was only day eight. We had plenty of time to get through everything.

Tucking my notebook and pens into my bag, I stood up to bid her farewell.

"Until tomorrow?"

Rose didn't shake my hand. They had turned prison lights out long ago so I couldn't exactly see her face. Instead, I saw a shadow of a nod, and a strange silence stretched between us.

I wondered if she was crying.

"Good night, Rose."

For the very first time, I decided not to pry.

* * *

There was a man in this world who was _not_ a man.

He tread the ashen remains of hollow souls, vestiges. He, the Observer, who watched history unfold from the skies as gods do, watched as men screamed and burned for _nothing_. For no simple reason other than the ignorance ingrained in their species.

Humanity was stuck in a loop, as ephemeral entities battled endlessly, vying for power. War. Peace. War. Peace. War. Peace. War— it was _maddening_. Maybe it was in their programming to be so obnoxious. Luckily Cygnus, or so the mortals called him, had managed to shed the false skin eons ago.

First, the world would witness Graham Paisley's rise. Then, his destruction – when it happened, for it _would_ happen… such is the course of history. Villains had only one end: combustion. Not death. _Combustion_. Erratic tendencies made them unsustainable long-term, incapable of moving past their own mental fixations. Tom's weakness had always been his inability to look past his meager form of immortality.

But this fall would not be brought on by a prophetic hero. _That_ fairy tale had died long ago.

 _Or maybe, it was subdued, hiding somewhere from the cold harsh realities of this world, and most likely, the next._

Either way, it meant that this time, change would have to come from elsewhere. Paisley's defeat would not be at the hands of good, but a refined evil.

 _Fascinating creature, the new boy._

Human anomaly: Violent, brilliant, armored, sexually frozen.

 _Just like Tom_

How clever Harry had been, to remodel his sick son after his grandest foe.

 _…yet so young, so supple, so… fresh_

How clever and yet how so very foolish.

 _…to come so far and learn so little._

For Tom's weakness had always been plain.

 _…to ignore the lesson of history_

And his weakness was that he was _human._

 _History would_ _ **always**_ _repeat itself_

What was Harry thinking?

 _Indeed, what was Harry thinking?_

The long fingers curled broken skin, warm flesh. Live flesh.

A small thrumming pulse. Then, the flicker of a heartbeat.

 _"Awaken, Albus Potter."_

The abyss gazed back.


	22. Wake

_"_ _Awaken."_

Green eyes jolted opened to meet an empty sky: no stars, no clouds, no light. The heavens were appallingly blank. Neck in extreme pain, he lifted his head a fraction to stare into darkness so empty of details, it was almost suffocating. The only thing he could make out was the vague, silvery outline of road. A pathway in a static ocean of black, that his body was being slowly lugged across by—

[a very large, cold hand]

[sharp, talon-like fingers gripping his naked torso]

[something _not_ -human]

Somewhere inside his bleary mind echoed the voice of who had saved him. Not a hallucination, something tangible. And it was not Rose either, with her soft words and desperate eyes and nimble fingers cupping at his [ _stop_ it]. No…the face of his savior had no distinct features. It was a man, and also not a man. It was like staring into a void. Indecipherable.

His bare back was quickly hauled over jagged rock, a groan releasing from his mouth. For the span of a second, the force dragging him halted. Then continued.

 _"_ _Rest, now, Albus Potter,"_ intoned a gravelly voice, _"you are almost there."_

"Am I—" The words caught in his throat. "Am I dead?"

The creature echoed with a damning sort of laughter. High and erratic, it was like the cawing of hungry ravens.

 _"_ _You've been chasing Death for many years now. But did you know I was also chasing you?"_

"No." His voice, a rasp. "No I—"

Uncontrolled laughter rang out, shrill, _screeching_ ; the road trembled, distorting into an image with violent dips and curves, a mindscape of clownish horror. Gripping rocky terrain with one hand to steady himself, breath clenched in his chest; his mind raced to remember what had occurred before. His neck lolled exhaustedly to the side, and just as his head turned— eyes widened.

In the midst of panic he almost hadn't noticed: his entire left arm was _gone_. A bandaged mound protruded from his shoulder in its place, and he could spot charred flesh between the beige, dirtied layers.

An unusual dizziness seized him; he stifled the urge to vomit. Fingers— the five remaining— twitched for a cigarette, and only then did it hit him: He remembered being dug half-screaming from a hearth of fire. Water being poured down his bare back. Bandages twining around his forehead. There was more to the memory, an amputation epilogue even more macabre in some respects, but he couldn't dwell on it right then. His mind felt as if it was in pieces, hastily reconstructed.

"Where are you taking me?" he said faintly.

 _"_ _Somewhere,"_ replied the creature, claws tight around his body _, "where we may finally have some common ground."_

* * *

Reds and greens twinkled inside the Potters' quaint little house.

Ginny, cradling her newborn daughter with one arm, spooning mush into James' mouth with the other, observed worriedly as her brother threw charms at the giant, malformed pumpkin that sat at the center of their living room. Seconds ago, it had been a Christmas tree.

"Let it _be_ , George" she sighed. "Just don't do it again."

"No need to worry, dear sister, I'll fix it in a jiff."

Blue spellfire hit its orange veneer. Ginny groaned as the heaving vegetable inflated.

"Bollocks," George muttered, squinting at his wand just as a gaggle of little children chased Ron through the area; baby Hugo sat atop his father's shoulders, squealing gleefully.

"Let me go, you little monsters!" Ron cried, drawing giggles from the pack. "Away, _away_ , see, now none of you are getting your presents."

"Unca Ron, _no_ ooo."

Laughter rang out as he, with little nieces and nephews gripping at his legs, stumbled into the kitchen. There the other adults stood in the warmth of cooking food; animated conversation carried over the sounds of plates and utensils clattering.

"—dessert looks great, Molly—"

"—did you hear about what happened in the department—"

"—oh, thank you dearie, it was all Charlie's idea—"

"—Angelina, what do you think—"

"—I think Kingsley's got the right approach with all the new regulations—"

"—pleased to hear about the promotion, Perce—"

"—Oh I love what you've done with ze place—"

Molly tended to the roasting pork, chatting at Hermione, who idly nodded along as she mended her three-year old daughter's dress for the second time that evening; legs swinging, Rose waited impatiently for permission to go play again. In a moment of child-like observation, she noticed one family member quietly slipping away from the rest; footsteps heavy, silhouette treading down the darkened hall, he drew on his winter coat.

"Unca Har—"

Snow pounded against the rooftop outside as the door slammed, and the man paced across his patio, sighing as he ran his hands over his face. Friends and family were beginning to comment on his appearance; thin and pale and ragged, eyes splotched purple, the effects of a decade's worth of magical siphoning had started to show. He had so little time.

He had to do it now.

A _rap-rap-rap_ from above; his head turned.

In the foggy second-story window, there stood Albus, scowling and with eyes narrowed in suspicion. Unlike his father, he couldn't even bother to _feign_ interest in the seasonal festivities.

 _I'll be back soon,_ Harry mouthed. Fear flickered over the small boy's face, but he nodded, understanding as intuitively as any three-year-old that Daddy was not leaving on a mere 'business trip', even if that's what they would call it later. He yanked the curtains close.

Harry stared at the window for several moments after, pressure pinching at his eyes. Sighing, he drew off his glasses and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. He pulled on his hood and vanished into thin air.

With a crack of apparition, he landed in the midst of a barren field. Where he turned up was unknown to all but a few; a place he had uncovered in his early days, shortly after the Battle of Hogwarts, in the span of time when nothing made sense and no one had answers. Even Dumbledore's portrait had no way to account for the improbability of _**Expelliarmus**_ being enough to vanquish the Dark Lord, priori incantatem be _damned_. It was a fluke, a spell uttered in split-second panic.

He could have just as easily failed.

He _hadn't_ failed.

It had taken many months of quiet contemplation, of searching, to understand the magnitude of the power he'd gained in those vital moments; and also that coincidences _do not exist._ There were those in the world who swayed the tides of war with mere finger— _talon_ flicks.

Harry drew his wand and uttered an incantation, watching as the ground responded to his words with heavy shaking. A shack, all dirtied boards and shingles, held with rough sawed timbers, rose from the earth to startling height in front of him. It was ordinary looking, and seemed on the verge of collapse, as it had seemed for many years. Appearances are often deceiving.

 _"_ _You are late tonight, my friend,"_ intoned a loud gravelly voice. _"Very, very late."_

His mouth went dry. "I can't just slip away whenever I want, Cygnus," he said, removing his hood. "I have a family now… I'm not seventeen anymore."

 _"_ _You have aged so much in such a small time… how pitiful, the lives of mortals are so frail."_

The shack remained unmoving, and the creature did not show himself. Icy wind blew as a weary Harry rummaged through his vast pockets. He held up the finding— a green sphere carved of feldspar stone, the center brimming with bright light.

 _"_ _Is that it?"_

An exhausted sigh. "Yes. Go on."

Without moment's pause, an invisible force greedily took hold of it, rotating the stone in blowing air as though mapping out its dips and curves.

 _"_ _I'm… flattered…you took the time to make me such a convincing_ _ **copy**_ _."_

Air swerved in an icy whiplash throwing him backwards.

"But it works," Harry insisted, quickly scrambling to his feet. He dug the thrown stone from snow with jittery fingers, holding it out once more. "I searched for years…No one knows where the real thing is, if it even exists. But this, Cygnus, I promise, this will satiate you for a long time."

 _"_ _Do I strike you as a fool, Harry? Do you think I cannot tell when I am being deceived?"_

A shrill noise rang and Harry collapsed into the snow once more, hands clasping his eyes. The noise tore at his mind, his conscience; it was the wailing of _thousands_ of lost souls, something Cygnus unleashed from the Other Side in a demonstration—of what was coming if he failed.

Magic clasped him at his throat, forcibly yanking him into the air.

 _"_ _Perhaps it is Tom I should have chosen…he certainly had more potential."_

"You said so yourself he was too selfish," Harry choked, face bluing, ears bleeding. "Impossible to work with…please….Cygnus."

 _"_ _Alas, villains are oft too unreliable, too self-centered….on the other hand, you heroes are noble to the point of being a nuisance. I think a combination of the two personas would have served me best. I suppose I could always – ah, hold that thought."_

The sound cut off. Harry dropped to his knees, breathing heavily.

 _"_ _I suppose I could always bring Tom back. But I wonder, would it be worth the risk? It is no easy feat to resurrect the dead, Harry, even for one such as myself. It is excruciatingly painful to Cross altogether…with every journey made, one becomes less present in this realm. A portion of myself already lingers in Death…I am bound by it…I cannot take any further risk."_

"I understand," Harry said, keeping his voice steady. "I want to help you, Cygnus. I really do."

 _"_ _Your words sound sincere… I have always liked that about you, Harry. It is not a quality the others possessed."_

"Let me in then," he persisted, "Let me in, and I'll show you how to use the stone. Trust me."

With a creaking groan, the wooden door to the shack slowly open. Harry took a deep breath, gathering his nerve, fingers clasping at the wand burrowed inside his coat.

Without any second thoughts, he disappeared inside.

* * *

The son was more like his father than Cygnus had imagined.

Strip the aesthetics. Strip the details. And what remained? A childhood passed in waiting and confusion, a looming dark lord, a red-haired girl one simply could not do without, and a…thirst, more than anything, to prove oneself.

Their pressure points were… _formulaic_.

Silvery wisps wrapped the severed flesh, molding out an appendage as white as alabaster. The boy stared at the magical prosthetic in awe, curling and uncurling his pale fingers, marveling at his mobility.

"Do you like it, Albus?"

The eyes shot up, green like Harry's but also duller; the face was thinner, features sharper, handsomer, colder looking. The hair was bloodied and disheveled. Burns ran along his bare ribcage. He was a boy naturally—not yet a man—but held the sort of confidence that aged him, gave him weight and presence.

"How did you do it?" he said, his voice quiet.

Cygnus smiled. "Most humans would say thank you."

The boy flexed the magical prosthetic, silently assessing. "It feels real...the skin's lifelike. I didn't think magic could reconstruct body parts so lucidly."

"There is much you do not know about magic yet."

The boy looked up and took in Cygnus' face, the faux-human appearance, lean cut and pale skin and no distinct features, as if searching for any betrayal of emotion. Finding nothing – _naturally_ – he gave up.

"Am I dead?" he said.

"Ha! Would you like to be dead?"

"Life wasn't grand," he said with a touch of surliness, looking around and taking in the span of greenery that surrounded them, a grove of cypress trees flanking them on one side, with the towering backside of a blurry mansion on the other. Up above: a clear blue sky. The boy eyed the lush veranda they were on, flowers and growth coating the ends of floorboards. The umbrellaed table at the center, heavily adorned, with dainty, porcelain cups set out on top.

"This isn't as terrible as I imagined. Is this what Death does all day, fix arms and have garden parties?"

The tongue lolled behind Cygnus' closed mouth.

"Rest assured, Albus, I have…other hobbies." He cast a glance at the table, which instantaneously stacked with jams, spreads and various pastries. "Join me for breakfast?"

At the sight, the boy's eyes widened. Cygnus knew the devastating effects of starvation on mortals, and while he entertained a _very different_ sort of hunger, he'd been able to sustain several lifetimes of patience. Humans had no conception of the word.

Sitting across the table, he watched as the boy piled his plate and attacked it ravenously.

"I still haven't heard that thank you, Albus Potter."

The boy snorted. " _Fank_. _Yew_ ," he articulated through a full mouth.

"Manners, manners. Didn't Harry teach you anything?"

The ears quirked but he didn't reply, too focused on stuffing everything edible into his mouth. Cygnus drummed his fingers; his young friend knew when to play dumb and was clearly disinterested in idle banter; rather, he seemed to be taking the time to work out his next mode of inquiry. Very Tom-like, indeed.

Chairs shuffled out of their way just as a piping kettle floated out to the veranda, elegantly tilting over and pouring tea into their cups. Albus' elbow knocked his over the edge—not accidentally— and a tray flew in to catch the hot liquid. A rag scoured the floorboards industriously mopping up stray droplets. The kettle refilled his cup.

The boy swallowed and looked up.

"How are you casting multiple wandless spells like that?"

"Guess."

"A legion of invisible house elves," came the immediate assessment.

Cygnus chortled.

"So then how?" the boy asked, brows raised as if impressed. "How long does it—"

"Eons, my young friend, _eons_." Cygnus gave a mirthless smile. "Wandless magic can take a human lifetime to learn to fully control. To master so that you are able to multitask without any effort, any words, any movement – and on such a _scale_ – may take many more."

"How many?"

"Patience, Albus. You are not even twenty-years-old yet."

Almost shockingly, the boy's ears _reddened_.

"I've never known anyone who could do magic like that," he said, his stare drumming into the table cloth. "But unsurprising, if you are who you claim to be. I just never imagined Death would be sentient—I wonder—"

"You're wondering why I look so different than what you saw before, aren't you? This, Albus, is my human form. As you may predict, the other is not very appropriate for breakfast."

"I see."

"Do you _like_ what you see?"

The boy choked on his tea.

Cygnus only smiled. "The wrong question to ask, I presume?"

"I'm afraid so."

A polite deflection, exactly like his father's. Tom, at the very same age, had responded offensively.

"Pardon my manners, then. Sometimes when I'm unsure about a human's…proclivities, I like to probe. It's a horrible habit, but I learn the most interesting details from it. Can you believe how different the preferences of humans for other humans are? Well, maybe _you_ do. But, for the longest time, _I_ thought you were all as homogenized as cattle."

The boy blinked, as if taking this all in, and asked, "Is this your only other form?"

"Oh no, my young friend, I can take on any form. Watch how easily I become… _you_."

* * *

Death as a sentient being was perplexing, to say the least.

It was hard to discern any rationale for it. Albus had always imagined Death as a process, a _transformation,_ not an ambivalent creature who abducted humans to have tea parties with. It was all very nonsensical and he idly wondered if the only truth that existed in the universe was that all logic was moot, a false pretension of security to cope with a meandering human existence; that, possibly, there were forces that existed outside human capacity that operated without rhyme, rule, reason.

[no]

[ _fuck_ no]

There was nothing outside _his_ capacity, nothing he could not reason and resolve. Which was why this entire situation was incorrect and offensive, like something out of a madcap children's novel [to be precise— _Beedle and the Bard_ ]. Still, it was not impossible. Albus decided he merely lacked the context to understand this ancient, unchecked creature who lorded [supposed] _eons_ of experience over him. Further investigation was necessary.

Even more so, Albus was not entirely convinced of so-called-Death's identity. Rose had disclosed something vital in their last encounter [more accurately, she had disclosed _many_ _things_ ] and while he wished to forget the second half of said encounter for strictly brotherly reasons, there was something beforehand—that stood out—

 _"_ _When I was…on the other side…I saw something. Someone."_

 _"God?"_

 _"No, there was a man. I thought he was a dream. He was beautiful but in a sinister way. Like he wasn't human. And his hands…." she trailed off, unsettled. "He was just floating there, looked like he was sleeping, and I think when I broke through…"_

Something had gone horribly wrong when Rose committed the resurrection. She had woken someone. Unleashed _something_.

How?

[build on what you know]

When she bypassed the life-for-life principle by killing her brother, immensely cheating death and returning with both their souls…Hugo's soul had been _severed_ , hadn't it? Albus could only assume _that_ was the mistake. Hugo _hadn't_ crossed properly, entirely. That meant a portion of his soul lingered in death. And in place the portion of _another soul_ had—snuck—

"Are you paying attention, Albus?"

He blinked, emerging from his thoughts. Across the table sat the older, broader, more refined version of himself, eyes pitch black. Hand folded politely in front, head tilted, the doppelganger smirked.

[vaguely reminiscent]

[graveyard]

[ _Rose_ _Pose_ ]

"Nice trick," Albus said, setting his cup down. His appetite was lost.

"You have more questions," Death observed, casually morphing back to his other form. "I will answer in the order I detect them in your mind – one: Yes, your cousin is well and alive. She is in far better condition than you. Two: No, this is not the afterlife. It is a place designed for those who belong neither here nor there. For some time, that has been just me. Three: I'm here entirely at my own volition. Spending too much time with the living is mundane and this is a nice, temperate location, don't you think? I consider it my summer home."

Albus opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. Then opened it again.

"What about the other realm?"

"What do you mean?"

"I—what's that like? What happens when you cross over into the realm of the dead?"

Somewhere in the distance, sounds of plates smashing.

Death's perfect smile faltered. "Why would you ask something like that?"

"Just curious." Albus quickly maneuvered a new topic: "Do you keep a record of souls that have passed?"

"Ah, you are wondering about your father, aren't you? I'm afraid I cannot tell you what you want— I do not know if he is truly dead."

[Death was a fraud]

"Why not?"

"Because, my young friend, your father is a very tricky man."

Albus remained silent. He busied himself in carving out a slice of cake.

Death leaned in. "Why, what do you think?"

"I don't know."

"But you must."

"You can search my head if you want – which, I suspect, you've been doing this whole time anyway." Albus wiped his hands on the napkin on his lap. "But your guess is as good as mine. I don't know where my father is."

Death's head cocked, eyes morphing into something colder. He extended a hand out in front of Albus' forehead, the palm becoming cracked and worn and bulging with blood-blue veins; the fingers contorting and blackening, the human veneer chipping away. The nails became longer, sharper; bird-like talons stopped growing a centimeter from his nose.

"Very well. I'll go ahead and take… a _closer_ look _._ "

Suddenly, claws gripped his face and he jerked back with the force of sudden wind— _magic_.

— _memories warped across his mind like blazes of light_ —

— _hundreds of moments with his father, training, studying, traveling, talking_ —

— _none held the answer Death sought_ —

— _a wave of relief washed over—_

Albus snapped awake, eyes wide.

"Beg pardon," Death gave a husky laugh, smoothly retracting his talons. "I often forget how low the comfort levels of a human are."

Perturbed, Albus rose to his feet.

Death did as well.

"I'm sorry," Death said, not sounding the least bit apologetic. "I…wanted to get to know you better. And it seems that I _have_."

As he stepped backwards, Death followed in his wake, the androgynous body contorting once more, adopting soft, feminine curves. The indistinctive face morphed into something familiar and red strands of hair fell from the scalp, until Albus was staring at an impossibly beautiful version of Rose.

The doppelganger sauntered over, hips swinging in an exaggerated way.

"Do you like what you see _now_?" Her voice was soft, but with a more sultry quality to it.

His feet shuffled backwards, nearly stumbling over each other. "No." Albus pulled his wand, eyes narrowing, and pointed it directly at the image. "That's sick. That's my family."

The doppelganger didn't bat an eyelid, slinking forward.

"What are so threatened by?"

"Not my cousin, if that's your meaning."

Death smirked, as he morphed back to his former self.

"Humans have the strangest fears," he chuckled, stepping forward. "A word of advice, my young friend, this attachment you feel…this shame…it is useless. All it will bring you is misery."

"I haven't a clue what you're—" Albus gritted his teeth but was forcefully silenced.

He felt a spell jerk through his body, his mind _fading_ …he yanked his eyes open to stare as the garden began unfurling: the veranda vanished as plants rose to startling length all around him, flower wilting, stems contorting into black wires that curled together at the top to form a cage-like structure. The seamless sky began to fragment, and inky black bled into the portrait of serene blue.

Death began enlarging as well, unfurling to monstrous size, body as black as the darkness seeping around them, as the arms became larger, talons more grotesque. He sprouted several spindly legs, adopting a solid black torso that twisted into an indescribable figure of inhuman abnormality. A physical chill swept through Albus as he drank in the sight. Void of clothing, the creature writhed as it expanded, smoky wisps curling around his sinister edges until it was ubiquitous. The multiple tentacle-like wisps – _appendages_ – danced menacingly around Albus, looming nearer and nearer, until at last they enveloped him in a total and palpable darkness.

" _My young friend_ …" The voice hissed, wisps caressing his face. _"Why cling to that which pains you?"_ They choked his throat, crawling across his torso and wrapping his thighs. " _I see extraordinary potential in you. Do not let it be thwarted by these parasitic thoughts - love is nothing more than a human idiosyncrasy. Your path is of solitude, as it has always been, and what you need – you need the darkness, the anger, the_ _ **hate**_ _."_

White-hot pain seared through his body as a long talon bit into his leg. Another gripped at his chest. Pressing his lips, Albus managed an excruciatingly painful neck turn. His fingers, buried against his side, grasped at the edge of his wand.

 _"_ _Reducto!"_

With split second thinking, Albus broke through the wisps and staggered backward, breathing shaky and erratic. Sweat ran down his bloodied face. His legs ached. Steadying himself, he gripped the weapon tight in the fingers of his magical prosthetic, expression lethal.

"Stay out of my head!" he snapped.

From all corners, the dark appendages shot at him like angered serpents. He threw a hex just as one swerved at his leg, slicing it through the center. Another quickly gripped his arm; Albus shoved it off and hurled another hex, straight into the eye of the storm, into the swaying talons of Death. The heavens rumbled as the creature gave a pained, thunderous moan, the large body writhing in anguish.

He watched as the creature coursed toward him with blazing speed, arms brandished, claws unfurled in fury. Albus aimed a spark of blue—exploding into a _shield_. Sparks sputtered off the edges as Death collided against it. A pained _hiss_ released into the air.

Eyes fierce, jaw clenched, Albus held his ground; wand gripped with both hands maintaining the safeguard.

From the other side of the magical barrier, Death's expressionless stare bore into his.

 _"_ _I do not wish to kill you, Albus. Such a waste of talent it would be."_

Pitch black eyes assessed his seething form, silently calculating.

" _I want to help you. In ways your father never could."_

The creature's licentious lips curved.

 _"_ _Graham Paisley…you want to kill him, don't you?"_

A powerful feeling gripped his insides, yanking him forcibly to his knees, bowing his head. His magical prosthetic fell limp to his side; Other muscles shut down with such an intense critical exhaustion, he felt nearly paralyzed. His body, in a state of total submission, relinquished all control to the creature's Imperius Curse.

 _"_ _He is a fool to think he can make you his little pet. He underestimates your skill, thinks you are a child that he can easily defeat. It will not be easy to kill him, but not so impossible either. I will… assist you."_

Light faded as the shield waned overhead. Nearer, nearer the clatter of footsteps drew.

 _"_ _I will hold your hand…like a father…yes. And in turn, you will do something for me."_

Albus squeezed his eyes, as his mind was flooded with images of flame warring metal, tattered bodies, wandfire, screaming cousins and—and—

"What?" he whispered, too afraid to meet the looming creature's stare.

Footsteps clattered to a stop. The Imperius Curse was lifted, relinquishing its grip on his body.

Talons clenched around his shaking hands.

 _"_ _You will keep what you kill."_

* * *

 **AN If you are enjoying this fic, I would love to know what you think so far :)**


	23. Rise part 1

The ventilator let out a piercing shriek.

A nurse rushed in to snap it off just as Rose groaned, clasping her hands over her ears. He sloshed fresh oxygen potions into the machine and cleaned her tubing, changing bindings as he went undressing her while she stared upwards with a cadaver's stare – his touch was heavily sterile, lacking all warmth.

He left without a word. Minutes passed, or maybe hours.

Four bland walls enclosed her, muting life along with all its chaos; a temporary ministry-proscribed haven from the world outside. She wasn't allowed newspapers either for fear that news about the stressful political climate would impede her recovery, but she'd gathered all she needed to know from _hush-hush_ whispers with Hugo.

Outrage was sweeping through the nation.

Statues in the grand halls of the Ministry came violently crashing with protests.

Kingsley's position had been usurped by the ICW.

And, now, with the dawn of winter, the blockade was in full effect. No way in or out; England'd becoming the equivalent of a pressure cooker.

The Minister's chair was vacant.

So now he'd play the good guy, the Head. The people's champion. He'd promise change and rile the masses, and when there was enough support, go to the Wizengamot with his plans to steal power back from the ICW. In the meantime she'd do anything he needed her to do, sit dead, play pretty; his loyal little _bitch_. Because what choice did she have?

Some days she wanted to die.

Other days she closed her eyes and imagined Al beside her shriveled form on the hospital cot. _Rose Pose,_ he'd whisper, leaning in to cup her face, and she'd sigh at the feel of his warm, smoky breath traversing her skin. He always vanished just as she reached her fingers out to touch him.

Sick—yes, she was, and it was the wrong sort of fantasy to have, but what did that matter anymore? Their closeness had always been a source of both relief and tension, of volumes of unspoken things, and now it was _gone._ Without her cousin, all their plans unraveled, and the direction of the narrative felt lost.

Lying there, in the wake of such an unimaginable travesty, she felt lighter but it was the sort of lightness that came from losing a limb.

.

.

 _Dear_ —blank— _family,_

 _It is with heavy heart and the sincerest condolences that the British Department of Magical Law Enforcement writes to inform you of_ —blank— _'s death._ —blank— _was of the many hundreds whose life was unexpectedly taken at Little Norton this year; The documentation and proceedings for_ —blank— _'s death are being overseen by Auror Weasley. Due to international security reasons, however, we are unable to disclose any further details in this letter._

 _The department is still gathering facts about the attacks but here is what we are able to share: On October 15th, 227 witches and wizards were senselessly slaughtered in mass magical bombings organized by an anarchist group that calls itself 'Ordine Corvis'. Our nation has been at war with them for a long time. For five years I've confronted this high-powered threat each morning in my intelligence briefing. As Head of Magical Law Enforcement, I have no greater responsibility than the protection of the wizarding people. However their tactics have evolved into a new phase recently, with the horrific bombings of muggle Camden only several months earlier, and now, this new attack on Little Norton._

 _The threat from the Ordine Corvis is real. But we will overcome it._

 _I have proposed a ten-point piece of legislature that, once_ _passed, will effectively stop the terror cell in its tracks. Our success won't depend on ICW intervention or sitting idle while our politicians bicker over ethics and other minutiae. That's what the Ordine Corvis is hoping for. Instead, we will prevail by being strong and smart, resilient and relentless, and by boldly drawing upon our military powers._

 _The last generation fought against Tom Riddle and his Death Eaters to bring us a hard won peace, a peace that we must not allow to be shaken by some copycat organization. They are greater in numbers, but so are we. And we must work together to battle this new evil, to avenge_ —blank— _and the hundreds of wizards who lost their lives at Little Norton. It is time to stop indulging the monsters of this world. It is time to fight back._

 _Sincerely,_

 _Vincent [last name in an indecipherable scribble]_

 _Head of British Magical Law Enforcement_

.

.

The message was in poor taste; a rallying call disguised as a letter of condolences. The majority of it, bollocks. Very unsubtle militarization dogma that his dad never would've allowed, had he been alive.

James wanted to tear it up but his hands wouldn't stop shaking.

.

.

 _Weasel,_

 _There's a low likelihood that they'll let this letter reach you but I reckon I may as well try. It's so bloody infuriating that I'm not allowed to see you. I'd rather talk face to face. but everything's gotten so complicated I can barely keep up with it all. Anyway, there's no easy way to say this so I'll just come out with it._

 _My dad's sending me away._ _He's pulled some strings with St. Mungo's superintendent and one of his contacts in France and gotten me transferred to a clinic in Paris. It'll take some political maneuvering to get me out of the country with the magical blockade, but, I reckon this is where being an 'M' helps. Can't write too much about that. No clue who gets their hands on this._ _Merlin, I feel like such an arsehole right now. I can't even imagine what you're going through. I wish there was something I could do or even say to help. I just….don't know what._ _I haven't been able to sleep since it happened._

 _My dad reckons I shut my brain off and stop thinking rationally whenever it comes to you; I reckon he's sort of right. I wish we weren't in life or death situations all the time so I could take you out on a proper date. I know that's just about the last thing that should be on my mind right now. It's so stupid. Merlin... I've just wanted you so badly for so long and the funny thing is, I don't even remember anymore how it all started. I've had my heart set on being with you for so long that I've been blind to how mad it's all gotten._

 _I_ _t took my best mate dying to make me see._

 _I think I must really love you and Potter, otherwise I'm not sure that I would've have stuck around this long. But I've got to let both of you go now. For my health and sanity, I think I've got to get the hell out of here because it's just going to keep getting worse, and at the end of the day, I'm just not sure if it's worth it. I hope you can understand. Tell Hugo I'm sorry I never took him to flying._

 _Stay safe,_

 _-S.M._

.

.

 _Rose,_

 _What's with the bullshit letter I just got? What's happened to my brother? Please tell me it's not true._

 _-James_

.

.

She wove through legions of shouting reporters with the swiftness of a cockroach, hard grip on her brother's arm.

He lagged behind, whining about how his trousers were too tight— _I'm serious, I can't even feel my legs!_ A chilly, blustery wind swept through the courtyard as she turned to shoot an impatient look, which he flustered him immediately. Flashing camera lights, cheeks coloring; he gave an embarrassed grunt and allowed his sister to yank him along.

Polished black shoes, tucked dress shirt, curls coiffed back, he'd been whining all morning about looking like a spoilt little tosser, though she thought it a right sight better than the sickly hospital robes he'd spent the majority of his life in. And his wardrobe change wasn't _nearly_ as atrocious as the low-cut purple number the Head had chosen for her-in order to make her more attractive-looking. It was impossible not to feel self-conscious when the brownish burns on your back, arms, and tops of breasts were on display for all to see.

Fact was—the new and improved Ressurectionist was clever, heroic… and, now that she was twenty, _just_ pretty enough to be conceived as fuckable too. Whatever it took to raise her approval ratings.

 _Rose Weasley!_ Ressurectionist! _Can we get a picture before the speech?_ Officer! _Over here!_

Silky fabric sashayed around her ankles upon entering the high-ceilinged chambers that were packed with noisy, animated bodies. For someone who'd been part of the auror team responsible for documenting every death at Little Norton, and as a result, spent excruciatingly long days for _weeks_ excavating dead bodies—the sight of so many moving ones, all at once, made her queasy.

Cameras flashed at the platform where the Head stood with his jutted chin, amiable expression. The perfect number of world-weary wrinkles characterized his face.

 _"—and if the last generation prevailed against Tom Riddle and his Death Eaters, then we can't let a copycat dark wizard organization like the Ordine Corvis tear us apart—"_

Applause thundered for the same stump speech he'd churned out nearly a million times now, the one that became more convincing each time you heard it.

Flash forward and applause rang again, as he was giving his final sweeping wave.

He paused momentarily, then, sending her a stern but meaningful look that she would've comprehended if less dazed.

Hugo, to her right, squeezed her arm.

She climbed onto the podium, one wobbly leg after the other, and faced out at the haze of glittering whites.

Drawing a deep breath, she murmured a quick 'hello', flinching as her meek voice was amplified tenfold, echoing loudly against her ears. The room responded with dead silence. Her tongue felt like carpet. She pulled the rest of her words out slowly, tentatively. "Some of you have, um, inquired about my wellbeing since the… bombings. I've been in the care of the Head of Law Enforcement and, um, I'm happy to report that that he's taken excellent care of me."

Sparse, scattered clapping. She paused here so the Head could smile graciously at her.

"A national tragedy like Little Norton is... it's _hard_ to talk about. It's impossible...impossible to imagine the mindset of wizards willing to go this far to incite fear. Terrible… and _terrifying_ , to think that magic could ever be used to kill on a scale like this. Used to create weapons of mass destruction, in the same barbaric way muggles use chemical bombs—"

She didn't know what terrified her more, the anarchists or the man whose words bled fascism.

"—and the truth is that what we face now is outside...outside the capacity of anything we've ever encountered. And maybe this generation will be burdened with war just like my uncle Harry's was... I don't know but I…" she stopped and took a deep breath, her heart battering inside her chest like a set of heavy drums.

Just then, her voice broke. "I wish I had a better answer for you."

Murmurs started. The Head's eyes bulged. They hadn't rehearsed that. He had warned her against the route of crippling honesty—better to hide behind vagueness and rhetoric—fearing it would feed the already sweeping mass panic. _Displays of weakness won't be well-received, Weasley._ She looked over at him and he craned his neck away. _You're on your own._

For a fraction of a second, the entire room fell silent once more. She held her breath, casting a quick glance upward; a silent prayer in case anyone still listened.

 _Please…let it work, just this once—_

shouting broke out almost instantaneously, all decorum lost. Hexes flew in left and right. One flew straight at her chest, throwing her backwards. Stars erupted in her vision.

She lifted her head with a groan, leaning on her elbows.

White lights flashed mercilessly.

Eyes spinning, chest tight, fingers curled around wand as she blundered across the stage dodging spells. Legs caught in dress fabric and she staggered, slip-sliding across the podium and spotted familiar curls bobbing in the sea of heads below.

" _Rose!"_

A camera flashed, blinding her, just as her brother swooped in to catch her arms and pull her down. Injured siblings helping each other: endearing enough to exploit for sympathy. To do damage control, the Head would ensure it made the front cover of tomorrow's _Prophet._

She landed on wobbly knees, shivering, wrapping the smaller boy in order to cling to his warmth. He held tightly onto her with one arm as she burrowed her face into his bony shoulder, fumbling with the other to find his wand and successfully cast an apparition charm. A furious wisp of air as they were squeezed through what felt like a narrow tube.

They turned up in some obscure London alleyway, gasping for breath.

She slid against the wall, brick scraping her skin through dress fabric. "That could've gone better." She squeezed her knees.

Hugo leant against the wall, panting. "You had to face them sooner or later."

"I just wish I knew what I was doing."

"I thought you were ok— you're bound to get better. Fake it till you make it, right?"

She shook her head, turning her neck just as his sleeve reached to wipe her face.

Hugo frowned. "C'mon, don't cry," he said softly, kneeling down. "Shove 'em all, let's just go home."

"Sorry, it's just—" Her throat closed. "My fault," she nearly choked out the words.

"Rosie. If you think hard enough about it, then _yes,_ everything's going to seem like it's your fault. But it isn't really." He held up a finger. "The trick is to not think so hard."

"Right…" She swallowed. His logic was atrocious. "Hugo, can I—" A pause.

"What?"

"Will you…"

"Go on, just ask. You've got nothing to fear from me."

Tears washed freely down her cheeks.

"Will you hold me?" she cried. "Just for a little bit."

Hugo just blinked. He gave a soft nod, followed by opening out his arms.

Strangled sobs escaped her mouth as she threw herself into them, wetness seeping through his collar where her head lodged. He rocked back from the force of her embrace but managed to steady himself, and timidly patted her shoulder. Her arms came tight around his body. She shuddered and shook as if they were being drowned.

"It's ok," he whispered again and again. "You're ok."

.

.

 _Scorpius,_

 _You've got nothing to apologize for._

 _You should go to France. I won't hold it against you, I swear._

 _I'd do the same thing in your shoes._

 _-Rose_

.

.

The Head was the one who'd made her a pariah in the first place, kept her in isolation for years, out of public eye—and not for her _safety_ as she'd initially thought, but to build her up as an enigma until some grand moment of unveiling.

A lamb raised for slaughter. Or slaughtering.

She played to the tune of this new narrative afforded to her, just as she always had, avoiding busy streets and keeping to herself as much as possible—that is, whenever she wasn't expected to rally enormously volatile crowds.

"Stop frowning. Don't furrow your brow like that. You look tense. Relax your shoulders. Look comfortable— _comfortable_ , Weasley, do you know what comfortable _means_? Good. Now walk forward. Tilt your head when you look around—yes, just like that— _good_."

He issued orders quickly, conducting her, his wand the baton which with he cast charms to keep her from fumbling over as they practiced every evening. "Now repeat after me…The Ministry does everything in its power to ensure the safety of civilians."

"The Ministry does everything in its power to ensure the safety of civilians."

"Good. Now say it like you mean it."

Under such a relentless coach, her public lying skills improved the longer she was forced to keep at them. The Head was relieved; she figured he'd been planning this training montage for _ages_ , from the moment he'd laid eyes on her fifteen-year-old blank slate in the chambers of Wizengamot—when he'd counted out the last of Kingsley's days.

"They'll put you on a pedestal," he told her. "Every blemish will be magnified. Every failure condemned... If there'd ever been a time to harbor insecurities, it is now gone."

"Yes, sir" was the only sensible reply. Her brain rattled in her skull.

Little by little Rose learned that she was not one instrument but the entire damn ensemble, and the Head intended to conduct her with a total lack of concern. With every cruel flourish of the wand she was shifted from the middle of a dolled-up press conference, to conducting exhausting fieldwork as another one of his aurors. Often time these were followed up incomprehensible days in the hospital wards. And sometimes, when she wasn't in the wards under heavy medication, he allowed her to do her own heavy medicating.

So it was no surprise that then came the fruits of his negligence: potion addiction. Because what he didn't account for was that, eventually, all the anti-anxiety brews and adrenaline shots would add up. she'd fumbled too many interviews, lose too many duels, cause too many riots.

Her parents, the legacy of her past self—some part of her had always known she couldn't live up to it.

But when the shame finally hit, it'd hit her _hard_.

.

.

Her brother kicked against the stall once, _twice,_ with no response. "I can hear you crying, you know," came his sigh.

Potion bottles scattered around her, her head remained buried between her legs. "I don't feel good." Her voice was a quiver. "Everything's spinning."

"It's ok not to feel good sometimes… You have to stop taking so many potions though."

"It's not sometimes. I don't know. My head won't stop hurting. I'm just so _tired_."

The sound of Hugo's body sliding downward, as she heard him give another sigh. He was seated with his back against the door now, mirror image to her. "Do you want me to come in there and hold you for a bit?" he asked, softly.

"Will you?" Her voice was small.

"'Course I will, Rosie. You just gotta ask."

.

.

Despite her neediness and incompetence and every mistake she felt was stamped upon her face, he was there, her beautiful perfect angelic brother, and maybe that was what made it all a little more tolerable. The fact that when she woke up, in the middle of the night from yet another terrifying nightmare, clothes soaked with sweat—

He'd be there.

Her legs swung over the side of the bed as she drearily sat up. Head ducked, her lungs wheezed for air, her fists clenching at her sides.

He sat beside. "How was work today?" he asked, running soothing circles against her back until her breathing went down a few notches.

"Exhausting."

"When'd you get in? I didn't hear you."

"About midnight—you were asleep." She drowsily ambled back under the covers. Waiting until she was some distance away, he climbed in beside her.

"You should've woken me. Did you have dinner?"

"Yes, I remembered to eat…I'm _fine_ , Hugo," she murmured at his disbelieving expression.

"I can make some hot chocolate," he offered quietly. "Wanna play exploding snap and talk for a bit?"

"No." She shifted onto her back, kicking her legs over the covers as a sigh heaved from her body. He copied her motions, folding his arms over his chest, letting out an even longer sigh to make it obvious he was poking fun at her.

She raised an eyebrow.

He raised one back.

She shoved his shoulder and he grinned, tickling her side with one hand so that she yelped and scooted even further away. She huffed and wedged a pillow in between them, even when all she wanted to do was pull him close and smother him with kisses and cuddles. She felt starved for physical contact, closeness, _something._

But she didn't. She shifted onto her back again and rubbed at her sore eyes. Reached into the nightstand drawer and pulled out the half-empty packet of fags that had been there for ages, lit one, and inhaled, and drew out a long, almost-wistful sigh. Brother and sister quietly watched strands of smoke swirl over their heads, disappearing into the dark with all her unwanted thoughts.

.

.

Life settled into a routine eventually, if an uncomfortable one, just as it always had. And perhaps this was something that masked a colder truth; if for some reason, one was expecting some surprise, for her to reveal an earth shattering event that forced her to climb out of rock-bottom. Did a wizened mentor arrive to her aid to train her? A lover to save her? Did she uncover some secret power at a critical moment? No, she was never one to be so lucky. And the truth was that for those that have no prophecy, the journey upward is far less glamorous.

"There is no great revelation, no great secret, to what I later became, Mr. Walker. There is only me."

Eventually the breakdowns had behind closed ministry doors became so commonplace they no longer mattered, nor the calming brews she took each night to make herself fall sleep. And as much as she sobbed into her brother's shirt in privacy, she learned to wear a different face in front of cameras, the face of the daring and revolutionary witch bent on bringing Graham Paisley down.

The Ressurectionist was a witch made of stone.

It did not matter what Rose Weasley was made of.

They swarmed whenever they caught her, in the streets, lights flashing and voices clamoring.

 _Ressurectionist!_ Over here! _How do you feel about the Ministry's increased surveillance policy?_

"I think it's absolutely necessary given what we face in this day and age," she'd say. "Graham Paisley has people hiding out in all sectors of society and it's imperative that we bring them to justice."

Once the initial anxiety was gone, she began to notice an amazing transformation. Masses of hungry eyes stared at her whenever she spoke, as though expecting magic to start pouring from the Ressurectionist's mouth—essence that could be sopped up and used to bring back loved ones whose bodies stacked up in the papers with each passing day, slowly being devoured in the great chasm of England splitting to pieces beneath their feet. People _cared_ what she had to say about it all.

 _So you don't think the new policies are stomping over the rights of wizards?_

"I—I can't comment on that. Even if it is, it's a security precaution we have to take at the moment. The Ministry needs to do everything in its power to ensure the safety of civilians."

Rehearsed words, feelings. All eaten up.

But it didn't really matter. _What_ she said did not matter, so long as she did not backtrack, as the Head explained to her. The one thing she would _not_ do is present a weepy, washed-up little girl. Rather, she would present a witch who believed in the fury she had unleashed. She would give no apologies for mistakes committed the day before. She would claw through any given disaster, dust herself off, and play to the next narrative assigned to her because that was what she was good at: surviving. Because there was nothing definitive about her, about what she felt or believed, and that in itself was her most enduring quality.

At the drop of a hat, she became whoever she needed to be.

.

.

On the floor of the Auror department hung the mundane reality of rows upon rows of cubicles crammed with rolled-up forearms and bloodshot eyes trained against paper, the stale smell of coffee lingering in the air, as exhausted wizards slaved away with a dull machine-like efficacy. Alarms rang constantly. They were all on twenty-four hour call in case of immediate disaster. Then, surveillance missions took up a good chunk of the weekends, almost to the point that many of her coworkers didn't even bother going home, just slept under their desks between shifts.

As the clock struck nine, her eyes were already glazing over the black ink of another arrest report. Kovy and Florian, in their respective cubicles at her sides, appeared to be working quietly which made her suspect the former had fallen asleep and was, at the moment, drooling all over his case files. Both boys had been fidgety all morning, having come in from a grueling stakeout outside one of Graham Paisley's safe houses from the entire previous week. The operation had failed; someone had tipped the Crows off beforehand and there had been an ambush, which resulted in numerous casualties that lowered morale throughout the department.

The failed operation wasn't the only thing causing low morale, however; Christmas was approaching, and Cynthia had told her how hard this time of the year was for many of the transfers, who had no family here, and weren't able to go home because of the blockade. She'd had five sisters she'd wanted to see and now couldn't. Likewise, Florian wouldn't be able to visit his fiancée and Mr. Hashimoto's wife and kids were all in Japan. Rose knew Kovy had people too, but he didn't talk about it like the others and vehemently changed the subject when it was brought up.

This stung her in some way. He'd been the closest thing she had to a friend at the office and she'd taken his wonderfully distracting company for granted. He used to bring her coffee whenever she was crabby—so nearly every day—and served as a refreshing opposite to the aurors who behaved like competent adults; rather than finishing his paperwork, he divided most of his time between chatting up female aurors, playing pranks on Florian, and complaining about the fact he had so much paperwork. She also appreciated how he was so...erm, _vocal_ about all his petty grievances. It made him a good buffer for the sadistic energy dispensed by the Head who stopped by their cubicles to assign more work.

Rose decided that, in another life, she would've liked to be Kovy.

"The changes around here have hit him the hardest," Cynthia told her, under her breath. "Poor thing. Not used to doing actual work."

"I heard that!" His voice called, and angry pounding came from the cubicle to the right.

By now Kovy had become sullen and withdrawn and boring just like everyone else. He didn't bring her coffee anymore, and hardly seemed to put off work at all. For her own health and sanity, she thought it essential to cheer him up: She placed a cup of coffee, with a smiley face etched on the side, on his desk when he was in the loo.

They didn't have time to speak but the next morning, she saw a note on her desk with the words ' _less_ _sugar_ , _more_ _cream'_ , and she knew it had worked. From there on, started a ritual. She'd place coffee on his desk every day, always with a smiley, figuring out how to get the sugar-cream ratio just right, and she'd receive a note on her desk the next morning telling her what needed changing. It was silly but exactly was needed to get through the stretch of a miserable workday—and much more. Rose had one brother, a handful of distant work-acquaintances, and no friends; it would've embarrassed her to admit it, but there wasn't much for her to look forward to.

Scorpius leaving had hurt more than she'd imagined, but she had not allowed herself to longer on it. She had told herself she was happy for him. She had told herself this, because it was better that he left Hugo and her now instead of later.

That same worry did not exist with fellow aurors: without rich parents to illegally bypass the system, none could leave England even if they tried. The fact that Kovy played their little coffee game meant he was either lonely, sleep-deprived, or trying his best to distract himself from the futility of it all. Which meant they had at least one thing in common.

The day came at last, when his messy head of hair poked around her cubicle. "Congrats. You silly girl."

She turned around, taking in the circles under his dark eyes. He smiled kindly at her.

"Did I finally get it right?" she asked.

"No sugar, two creams; you got it _perfect_."

She whooped and spun around in her chair to celebrate, and he laughed. She wasn't sure what else to say but she waited, looking at him, a bit awkwardly, unable to keep herself from smiling. Her heart throbbed painfully inside her chest.

"So," he coughed. "What're you doing after work?"

" _After…_ work? I'm not familiar with that expression. Is it Bulgarian?"

A chuckle that showed he understood only too well. "Does that mean you're working tonight too?"

"I'm on night duty all week. I keep a permanent toothbrush in the loo and everything."

"Fucking hell." He groaned, ruffling his hair with both hands and ruining it even more. He looked up at her with an exhausted smile. "Well, at least we'll suffer together, Weasley."

Nothing could've sounded as romantic to her ears. Maybe they wouldn't talk very much that night, or the next night, or the one after that, but the fact that they would communicate again _at all_ made her absurdly happy. It was embarrassing. She felt starved for the slightest bit of company and she couldn't understand why.

All that she knew was she liked seeing his face light up when he came in in the morning to find a coffee cup on his desk. It was a small, unassuming way of getting to see him smile again. Some days she'd etch a heart instead of a smiley face, and then she'd watch his eyebrows raise. She shouldn't have done things like that, but her insides ached from being warped and twisted and coiled for so long, and she just wanted the guilty, painful weight in her stomach to go away. She wanted someone to look over and smile at her.

Days dragged by with such fatigue that often she could not tell where one ended and the other began. The weather remained as grey and stormy as ever, as riots sparked like lightning all through the nation. The _Prophet_ sensationalized was quick sensationalize the madness; articles after articles about how the streets burned, the government was falling apart, and Graham Paisley was far more influential than Voldemort had ever been. A sliver of truth existed to the last; There'd only been a few dozen Death Eaters.

It was impossible to account for the number of Crows. Sources estimated several hundreds by now.

The Head's ten-point plan to stop the Ordine Corvis passed the Wizengamot several months after the bombings after much vigorous debate. By some devastating miracle, the majority had raised their hands to reinstate the Unforgivables and throw the country back almost twenty years in terms of civil rights. The extremely controversial decision was not taken well by the ICW.

The words _military state_ floated in the tense air.

More and more energy was dispensed on policing and watching wizards, ordinary people, for suspicious behavior.

This was when the role of aurors really began to shift; Some saw them as mediators, necessary rule-enforcers in a world that had forgotten how to play by the rules. Others saw tyranny in the making and were quick to join up with the protestors. Some went as far as to join Graham Paisley. And while some aurors wholeheartedly believed in the Head's vision, others wrestled with their conscience every step of the way. But all meandered around to the point she had, understanding that feelings and opinions did not matter, that very little mattered except capturing the crime-lord who promised a war. And eventually, nothing mattered at all, except a chance to get some sleep and fleeting moments of joy shared between coffee.

.

.

"Look out!"

The stinging spell flew over her head as she ducked.

Senior Officer Hummel was tough as nails and arguably the fiercest duelist in the department, and it was no secret that that the woman resented Rose for being the Head's little stooge. Likewise, Rose resented her for being an overbearing, unnecessary 'witch-with-a-b'.

Rebounding with a flash of blue, Rose nipped Hummel's shirt at the shoulder to expose a sliver of dark skin. Hummel blinked at the tear, and flashed a furious scowl, before drawing the whole shirt over her head and tossing it aside.

The crowd hanging around them remained silent. Only one brave wolf-whistle flitted the air.

A sudden, furious blaze of light darted over her head that Rose staggered far too last minute to dodge.

Wide eyes darting upwards, she swallowed as Hummel neared, her wand grasped menacingly in her hand. They began to circle each other, holding eye contact, readying for attack once more. Rose moved first, fumbling a bit as she managed to disarm the witch temporarily. Hummel lunged forward grabbing back her wand in a swift, split-second movement, and blasted her backwards in a clean sweep.

Rose skid against grass, landing with a pained groan.

Match over.

.

.

The kissing was hard and tasted of whiskey.

His hands moved to her waist to grasp at her shirt, pulling it over her head. Rose trembled with hesitation at the sensation of her trousers roughly yanked down, followed shortly by her knickers.

 _Go on, this is what people do._

She had never felt so boldly exposed.

 _You'll never be normal unless you try._

The young stranger she'd met only a few moments ago in the muggle pub straddled her down against the bed, his large hands cupping her breasts, her bare bum, with the efficiency of a mechanic feeling out his controls. He began unbuckling his trousers but paused at her expression. "First time, eh," he chuckled, as she gave an embarrassed nod. "I'll go easy, love." He planted a brusque kiss at her temple, before burying his face into the pillow.

A held breath. A _gasp_.

Pain blurred with a faint mounting pleasure—she writhed and tried to ignore the sound of his balls slapping against her, tried to look anywhere except their conjoined bits. Sweat formed at the hinges of her body. It felt hard to come out of herself and _engage._ Something, she determined, that was maybe supposed to grow easier with time. She did not want to be rude, however; he had seemed quite sad earlier, weepy over some ex-girlfriend, and so she made herself focus on the positives; the handsome view she had of his shoulders while he fucked her, the blond hair. She convinced herself he was nearly Scorpius but without the awkwardness of familiarity. She convinced herself it was enough that she liked looking at him. With the exception of the color in his eyes, which were a haunting green. She couldn't bear to look at those eyes.

Groaning upon finishing, his limbs gave out and he collapsed on top of her. He kissed her for a bit before passing out, and she quietly dressed herself to slip out the backdoor. Once outside, she drew on her hood and walked quickly, a familiar burning in her belly. She avoided eye-contact as a large group of clubbers passed and sidestepped into an alley.

She paused to light a cigarette, inhaling as she leant against the wall. Thundered rolled. She closed her eyes and tried to block out the sound of the endless downpour. Somehow, it felt as if it was always raining.

A faint _zip_ sounded from nearby.

Her eyes snapped open. She drew her wand, straightening, and moved further into the alley.

 _"Lumos."_

A man and woman. Hiding out. Pale, ragged, and fairly young.

"Show your wrists," she ordered, watching them freeze. When they didn't, she grabbed the man's sleeve and yanked it up to reveal a crow enigma. "As I suspected." She stepped back, wand still aimed. "It's a felony for your kind to be here."

"Last time we checked these ain't wizard streets, miss," the woman jeered.

"The southeast of Camden is under Ministry Jurisdiction because of the bombings," she said coldly. "Everyone knows that. Why are you out so late?"

"Shopping."

A jet of blue light slammed against brick, inches from their bodies.

They exchanged a frantic glance. "Fine, _fine_ ," the woman said. "We've been at a meeting with some of the others."

"About?"

"Can't say, miss. They'll kill us."

Rose scowled. "Why work with them if they're that cruel?"

"Beggars can't be choosers. We tried praying, you know. God didn't come," the man said. "Graham Paisley did. He _pays_ , miss."

"That's not an excuse," she snapped. "You're helping dark wizard scum. They want to destroy England. You're enabling your own destruction."

They exchanged a look.

"It's a matter of time before the lot of you destroy England. Maybe we'd just like to be on the winning side."

She recited a platitude: "The ministry does everything it can to ensure the safety of civilians—"

" _Bollocks."_

She faltered. "Then we'll do more," she gritted her teeth, her hair dripping. "Surrender. Let me take you into custody. I promise you'll be safe and you can tell me—"

Green light pinged off the wall, and Rose ducked, heart hammering in her chest. Footsteps echoed down the alley.

Knees bent, her hands groped wet pavement for the wand she'd dropped in her brief moment of panic. "Great," she hissed. A run-in with Crows savvy enough to throw around Killing curses was not something she'd expected. She didn't know who was supposed to be out on patrolling that night but planned to file a complaint when she got in to the office.

Damp paper scratched the tips of her fingers, a crumpled piece of parchment, dropped, presumably, by the man and women in their rush to leave. She picked it up, opened it, her eyes widening at the content. Hastily tucking it into the pocket of Al's jacket, something she wore on days she was feeling particularly low, she vanished. In a flash of wind, she apparated in front of the Head's grand manor, just outside his tar-black metallic fence.

Nodding at the gargoyles, who recognized her and swung the gates open, she trudged through the pathway lined with decorative rocks and up the stairway to his doorstep, and rang the gonging doorbell again and again.

At the first flash of lightning, he finally opened the door, dressed in a plain white shirt and grey boxers, on top of which he wore silken sleep robes. Far from the man whose face was always beaming on posters and papers, he looked especially old and crotchety upon seeing her.

"Yes, Weasley?" he said, with a sleepy grunt. "Is the world ending?"

"Not yet, sir."

Thunder cracked once more and he rubbed at his eye. "And you have the gall to disturb me. Bloody _fucking_ hell" —he pinched the bridge of his nose— "What in hell's name is that stench?"

"Despair," she gritted her teeth, shivering. " _Sir_."

The Head blinked, and sulked. "Merlin's trousers," he mumbled wearily, stepping aside to let her trudge in with her muck-coated boots, scowling as she tracked filth all over his tidy floors. He gestured for her to follow him and, together, they made way through the grand halls of his elaborate manor, lined with portraits only of himself, into his sitting room. A familiar off-putting thought struck her: from the very early days of their acquaintance, when she'd stayed for him as his ward: The manor, as posh and elaborately constructed as it was, seemed too large for one man. But in her time there, she'd seen no sign or indication that he'd ever had anyone besides his two elves, Una and Gus. No family.

The elves quickly appeared to offer her a towel and clean clothes but she shook her head.

The Head shrugged, in no mood to be particularly cordial to her at such an unholy hour, not that he ever really was. He sat in one of his fancy armchairs and poked around at his tray of expensive cigars before finally choosing one. He slid the tray of the rest in her direction without a second thought. She couldn't help but wonder what compelled such a move. She knew he did not think much of her; they were king and pawn, not equals, and certainly not friends. She was the only one who knew of all his plans, who followed him unconditionally. They'd been spending a great amount of time together these previous months, practicing her lines and speeches, so perhaps…that had allowed for a certain one-sided frankness to manifest.

But offering a twenty year old girl a cigar?

"Well, Weasley? Take one."

"Er – no, thank you, sir."

"Your choice."

She blinked. He'd never allowed _choice_ in their conversations before. The word sounded filthy, somehow, and she found that she didn't like it at all. It made her feel like an accomplice.

"Go on," he said, impatient now. "Why are you here?"

She pulled out the wad of paper from her pocket and rolled it across the table at him. The Head stared at the crumpled parchment, unimpressed.

"What does it say?"

"Graham Paisley – he's planning another attack."

.

.

At the raise of Hummel's wand, her body flew through the air, head landing against Auror Roderick's shoes.

"Daddy looks grumpy," he told her, sniggering, as she stood back up with a grunt. He gestured over the heads of other aurors towards their boss, who sat on an elaborate lawn chair, his two elves holding an umbrella over his head, watching the duel with a stern expression.

Hummel threw another hex that she frantically swerved to dodge. Bent to knee level, her breath came out hoarse and rapid.

 _Tired already Rose Pose?_

 _Shut up,_ she growled over her shoulder, though no one was there.

She threw a hex at the witch. And another hex. Hummel dodged the first but the second one took her by surprise, landing her on her back with a groan. Rose's hand tightened around her wand in frustration.

Once more, it had taken her too long to disarm. After weeks of laborious training she'd made significant strides but was nowhere close to where she wanted to be. Though she trained every spare moment that she had, studying the methods of her betters , working on her speed, practicing with other techniques—she had to get better if she wanted a shot at Graham Paisley.

The Head had done an international press conference where he ensured the crime lord's capture within the next five years; and so, it'd become the unspoken objective of every auror worth a damn. The deaths at Little Norton had hardened hearts, and people wanted immediate action. The rest of the world had zeroed in on England with an ultimatum:

The Department of Law Enforcement would deliver. Or other governments would intervene.

National sovereignty was at stake. All operations were bent on tracking the crime lord's whereabouts. His execution would be their saving grace, the only way to keep the Ministry of Magic from being dissolved and keep the country from heading down the dark path to war. It was both a curse and blessing was that Graham Paisley had people in every nook and cranny of England; in the last three months alone, over two hundred arrests.

After several brutal interrogations, all sources pointed towards the Highlands as the crime lord's last remaining refuge.

That was where he was planning his next attack.

.

.

She was being watched.

She recognized him easily enough: the figure in a tweed-jacket she'd run into earlier that day, in the Ministry atrium: lanky form, self-sown buttons, taped glasses, and sleeves that were coming apart at the seams. The sort of wizard that'd probably never fit in anywhere.

He'd been scurrying through mobs of officials, clutching a stack of papers, when they bumped into each other. He'd dropped all the papers. "Sorry—pardon me, Ressurectionist," he'd stammered, face turning red, as he quickly scoured to pick them up before jolting down the hall.

"Ressurectionist," Cynthia snickered, tugging at her elbow to pull her along. "Can't believe people really call you that."

"Me neither." It was nearly as bad as the Chosen One.

What she appreciated most about Cynthia was that she didn't take her title nor the doom-and-gloom surrounding it as seriously as everyone else, and treated her like another normal girl. However, even while Cynthia'd always been the member in their unit who maintained normalcy, chattering on and on about inane things to anyone that would listen, it was clear that she was struggling with that task now. Every few days, around the afternoon, she'd stand insistently in front of Rose's desk with her purse in hand, and say:

"I need to get out. Can we go somewhere?"

Unable to handle the busy silences of their other co-workers any longer, Rose'd lift her head off her desk and give a weary nod, and they'd end up having lunch together somewhere; usually a muggle location as they worked best for maintaining a low-profile. They weren't really friends, but that that sort of thing didn't matter anymore. They were co-workers, under extreme duress, and – in a personal, undiscussed way – two young witches managing mainly on their own.

"So," Cynthia spoke with a long yawn, "what are you doing for Christmas?"

Rose shrugged and took a large bite of her sandwich, turkey and rye, watching groups of people swarm into the pub. She couldn't help but feel a pair of eyes on the back of her head, but after doing a quick take around and finding no one, wrote it off as paranoia.

"I think I'll take Hugo out to a show." She took another bite.

Cynthia made no effort to hide her fatigue; she had her head laid sideways against her arm on the table, and was idly stirring her soup by swirling her finger in the air. "What kind of a show?" she yawned again.

A muggle show; somewhere quiet and dark, where she would not be recognized. "Not sure. Maybe the movie theatre? He's always been fond. Used to watch spy films with our grandad all the time when he was younger."

Cynthia gave a tired, but genuine smile. "My ma used to take me to the movie theatre when I was younger. I loved all the ones about magic. We used to pick apart all the ways they'd get it wrong."

Rose snorted into the tea. "How much do they get wrong?"

"Oh, about nearly _everything_." Her words came out soft, drained of emotion, but you could still hear some vitriol. "They think we're a bunch of green-looking monsters, with ugly warts, who've got solutions to everything in a cute little spellbook. They've no clue of how magic really works, how much thought and schooling goes into it. I mean, we've only really managed the tip of the iceberg."

"Too true."

It reminded Rose of how Graham Paisley had, no doubt, been inspired by muggle nuclear technology in developing weapons –the bombs– from which there was no defense. The fact that he was not only ruthless, but also creative and innovative and capable of such advanced magic, made him _incredibly_ intimidating.

She felt eyes on her once more, and did a double take out the window. It was the young man in the tweed jacket, standing across the street. He was watching her intently. He must've been following her. Anxiety flared and she cast a quick charm to fog up the glass.

"Did you always want to be an auror?" she kept on.

Cynthia was watching people fill the booth across from them. "My ma was a bigshot auror in her prime in Spain," she murmured. "I'm the youngest of six. No one thought I'd do anything remotely useful. I wanted to prove them wrong. I just never thought it'd be this grey. And I don't just mean the weather, I mean everything. The work. England. Life here is just…grey, you know?"

Rose smirked. "The greyest."

"Greyer than cement."

"Greyer than the Head's nose hairs."

"The Head, he's pretty old and horrible but he's not that bad looking of a man, is he?"

Rose spluttered into her drink, sloshing it over her lap.

Cynthia sighed dejectedly. "Never mind. Sorry. I haven't gotten laid in _months_."

Rose snorted into her water, swallowing a bit too much at once. She shot another look out the window, just in case: the man was now gone. She stood up. "Listen—I'll catch up with you later."

A storm brewed in the clouds as she dashed through back alley after alley, until she caught the flash of sandy brown hair.

She pulled her wand, trudging forward, and shot a beam of blue that knocked him off his feet. He skid, arms flailing, and landed on his bum. The neck turned, eyes wide like a doe's. Rose aimed another hex. He hastily shot up and ran to dodge it by leaping into the nearby dumpster.

For a moment she could only stare. Then, she came to terms with what she was up against.

She tucked her wand away and walked over.

"Oi!" She banged loudly on the side of dumpster. "Get out!"

As if on cue, he leapt out and rolled across the pavement, before popping up to his feet.

"Sorry I—you're Rose Weasley, right?" he panted, covered in some foul-smelling sludge. "I should introduce myself." He extended a hand out to her. "I'm Lorcan Scamander. I work in the Department of Mysteries. Let me I just say that I am a _huge_ fan of your work."

She stared.

After a moment or two of awkwardness, he retracted his hand. "Your work." He nodded. "You know – the whole—" He made the gesture for an explosion with his hands. "—reviving the dead. Pretty spiffy, in my opinion."

"Sure, but it's not a parlor trick," she snapped. "Now stop following me like a creep."

She moved to leave. "Wait, _wait_." He dashed in front of her. "I _know_ it's not a parlor trick. Death—" he put a hand to his chest, to finish catching his breath "—Death is my special area of research in the department and I've spent _ages_ trying to figure out how you did it, but you see—something's wrong. Your methodology just doesn't add up."

Rose blinked. "Leave me alone," she said tersely. And stormed away.

.

.

 _Did you know, that I figured it out?_

 _Rose Pose_

 _Why you brought back the dead_

 _It's because you were scared._

 _Fuck off,_ she thought, quickly swerving to dodge Hummel's hex. _Leave me alone._

 _Scared of having to face your own miserable reality, in the living world, all by yourself._

 _Is it that hard to be on your own?_

 _Pathetic._

 _Bastard._ She found her mouth curling into a snarl as she threw one back.

 _Am I still the scariest thing in your head, Rose Pose?_

 _Tell me, am I still in your head?_

 _Do you miss me?_

She flashed a shield blocking the beam of red, and drew a measured breath. _Leave me alone._

 _You let me die._

Wind blew in sharp gusts and her eyes burned. She threw several disorienting hexes all at once. Hummel veered to dodge them, sweat streaming down her brown, rattled expression. In public scrutiny of all the other aurors, she looked as restless as Rose to bring the duel to an end, though neither of them were about to surrender.

Rain started around them, pitter-pattering against the pavement as they stepped in unison, a vicious synchronous dance. They drew closer and closer until Hummel was able to lunge forward and strike her wrist with a stinging charm. A pained yelp escaped Rose and she dropped her wand.

The wild grin flit the older witch's face.

Just as Rose dove to grab her wand, Hummel threw such a vicious streak of silver that it even drew screams from watchers. A rush of wind as Rose sprang sideways, the hex drawing blood as it blazed by the hem of her trousers. Dizzying pain stretched through her tendons.

She landed in slick mud, clutching at her thigh. Her eyes narrowed.

 _Face your fears, Rose Pose._

She snapped back on her feet in frustration, the pain in her leg paling in comparison to the _blistering_ need to do retaliate. Everything inside her ached for something to change. She was tired of constantly being thrown on her ass. And why'd Al always been so much better than her anyway? Because he let himself be devoured by magic, detached himself from everyone and everything around him. Why couldn't she have the same steel-edge focus? Why couldn't she drown her stupid, silly emotions out? Why did she have to feel so _goddamn_ much?

Her cousin had always been a perfect, impenetrable mind in a machine.

That's what she had to be.

The end of her wand erupted with a powerful beam of red.

Hummel conjured a shield in time but it was no use. Hex after hex shot from her wand with such brutal efficiency that shield began to crack. Her muscles ached, and mental exhaustion crept up her spine, but she kept at it. Rain blurred her vision, pounded like endless fists against her shoulders. She kept at it, thinking about everything that had been wrong for so long until it hurt enough to want it stop. To want to _do_ something. She was starved for it, just one victory.

The shield broke and Hummel's wand flew in the air, landing too far a distance to be retrieved. The woman collapsed backwards in defeat, breathing heavily.

The Head's clapping was, thankfully, drowned in the roar of rain.

Hair and clothes soaked, Rose sunk down to her knees to catch her breath. _I'm not scared of you anymore._

 _Did you want me?_

She squeezed her eyes and let the feeling of shame wash right over her, for she was nearing twenty-one now and, _surely_ , there were worse crimes in the world than touching lips as children tend to do.

 _Your fear, not mine,_ she thought, and the voice inside her head became silenced.

 _I win_ , Rose gave one final taunt. She picked herself up and ran towards her disheveled opponent, who was still breathing hard on her knees.

"Good fight," she panted, offering a hand and helping pull the other woman up.

.

.

Despite all her time in the Ministry, she'd never met an Unspeakable before, had had absolutely zero contact with them, and frankly, had had no idea they were so _moronic_. But it woke her to the possibility of someone out there putting it all together, the secret to Hugo's resurrection. Sure Albus had done it, but Albus was Albus and capable of spitefully brilliant things. However, if there were _others_ in the community with _similar_ inclinations…

She had to reel this in before it got out of hand.

She pulled every file they had on this Scamander fellow. Straight O student. NEWTs in every subject. He'd been recruited into the Unspeakable training program fresh out of school. He also had a twin brother, a magizoologist who'd been scouting the Galapagos islands for the last six years. Aside from some chronic trouble with the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes due to running unsupervised experiments outside of work, there weren't any serious misdemeanors on Lorcan Scamander's record. Nothing to suggest any ties to the Ordine Corvis.

In other words, he was brilliant. An idiot, but an absolutely brilliant one.

One day she caught him just as he was headed to the loo and dragged him into an empty cupboard. He looked equal parts elated and frightened to see her. She was prepared to Obliviate him if need be.

"What do you know?" she demanded, "Do you realize that you investigating the resurrection endangers us both? If anyone finds out—"

"Rose, secret keeping is half of my job. Well, no, maybe thirty-six-percent. The remainder of it is doing research," he said, voice earnest. "As hard as it may be to believe… I'm the one person you actually _can_ trust with this."

She blinked. "You're right. It is hard for me to believe," she grumbled. As she tried to move past him, he grabbed her arm and stopped her.

"I can help you," he insisted. "Your brother's not aging. I can help you figure out how to fix him."

"How do you know he's not aging?"

"Oh, please. That part's not difficult. Just takes a sharp eye. Hugo's – what, seventeen now? So why does he still look like he's twelve? That's no way for a boy to live."

Rose was quiet. Every bone in her body told her to Obliviate him. She felt like an idiot even for asking but—

"And what would you get from helping me?"

Scamander grinned and the dimples around his cheeks creased.

"A chance to work with the Ressurectionist."

Her eyes narrowed. "Stupid answer."

"What?"

"No."

"Hey— _wait_."

"Forget it. You're an idiot. _Don't_ bring it up again."

.

.

Christmas Eve, the Head held a grand gala at his manor for over one-hundred members of the Ministry.

She wore a green strapless dress of his choosing, her hair in an elaborate updo that didn't suit her and required constant maintenance. Aware it was a conscious choice to make a spectacle of her, to make her desirable to the dark-robed middle aged wizards in the room to win their favor, she sat slumped in her seat at the grand dining table determined to eat as much as possible. Later on, Kovy was kind enough to lend her his jacket.

It was primarily a business dinner, an excuse to continue working on the one evening Rose was certain everyone had scheduled off. As servants shifted out with large steaming plates of fancy meats and bread, officials to her left and right clamored about what to do with the ICW challenging the Wizengamot decision to pass the Head's legislature. It was the first of many issues the ICW had with how the Head was operating things.

"They're right to challenge it," said attorney Draco Malfoy, at the very front of the table, looking disgruntled. "I was never for the proposal. Legalizing the Unforgivables makes it look like we're legalizing _murder_. Do you realize what happened last time that idea was floated? Voldemort."

Murmurs rose in the room.

"Correlation, not causation." The Head waved the concern away, stabbing at his potatoes.

From her right, Cynthia passed her a note addressed from Florian. She put her drumstick down and unfolded it in her lap:

 _The French Ministry has always allowed law enforcement to use the_ _Unforgivables and they hold the lowest crime rates in the world._

Kovy, to her left, shook his head. "That's because France hasn't faced a dark wizard threat since the sixteenth century," he hissed, before turning to Florian and mouthing the word ' _invalid'._ In response, the Frenchman sent the two finger salute.

"Professionalism, boys," chided the elderly witch seated in between them, and both grinned apologetically at her.

"Professionalism, boys," Cynthia teased under her breath. Kovy attempted a kick at her under the table but ended up getting Rose on the knee instead. "Oops." He quickly clasped his hand on her skin to numb the sting, swiping his thumb in a soothing circular motion, again and again.

Her face drew in confusion. "Kove—"

He shushed her. "Quiet, Weasley, someone's talking."

At the moment, Hummel held the floor. "Did you thoroughly evaluate the ethical repercussions of your proposal, Vincent?" she said. "Because it sounds like it'll cause more trouble than we're capable of dealing with right now."

"What if we added a clause that limited it to use by senior officers?" Roderick offered.

Outraged shouts followed this suggestion.

"It doesn't change that it's a direct broach of the ethics mandated by the International Confederacy of Wizards," someone added.

"To _hell_ with the ICW," came a cry from the back, followed with murmurs in agreement.

The Head sighed, clearly getting annoyed by all the circular arguing. His gaze flit toward her, noting, evidently, that she was boredly slumped in her chair between her two silently bickering co-workers.

"Any thoughts, Weasley?"

Kovy and Cynthia stopped fidgeting under the crammed table and straightened to an effect. Rose sat straight up and met the eyes staring back at her. She surrendered her drumstick for the second time.

"ICW won't care about legislature if we capture Graham Paisley. Allowing the Unforgivables is a necessary step in doing that. We just need to stall them until we have results."

More murmurs. It came as no surprise to anyone, of course, that Senior Officer Weasley would wholeheartedly support the Head of Law Enforcement's idea.

She added: "I have no training with the Unforgivables and remember feeling at a severe disadvantage when I went to rescue Hugo."

"That's because you were outnumbered," came a disgruntled murmur from somewhere.

"It's the same now," she said, voice level as she looked around the room. "We have no way of accounting for their numbers, do we?"

In the last few months alone, membership of the Ordine Corvis had grown considerably. Graham Paisley had magic others couldn't fathom and he had advertised it well, tapping into the fears of wizards; he made absurd promises of a world without the Ministry, a freer, 'better' world – luckily for him, the idea was able to float because plenty of people despised the Ministry. While there was no way of knowing who was working for him and who wasn't, one thing was clear: the Ministry was woefully outnumbered.

"I just don't think we should underestimate the enemy," she said, watching as several officials, including attorney Malfoy, stood and stalked out of the room grumbling amongst themselves, clearly displeased with the direction of the conversation.

Others stared at her.

"And just _who_ is the enemy, Rose?" someone said.

She didn't answer, rather, looked meaningfully towards the Head.

"You all realize," he jumped in, "that it's been a year and half since the bombings and we've still no clue how the Ordine Corvis are operating a crime cell this large. We don't know how they have intelligence on so many of our operations. Now I've promised the ICW Graham Paisley's capture at the end of five years. If we don't deliver—well—we know what happens then. "

Anxious murmurs.

"Vincent has a point," said the Head of Public Affairs, a thin, aged man. "We're constrained by time and have very few options left. And now that's Kingsley's gone, there's no point sticking to his legislature is there? I say, we take advantage of the leniency afforded by Wizengamot and try to get more of his restrictions repealed."

"The public will be furious."

"We're aurors, not politicians," Roderick grumbled. "It doesn't matter what the public thinks—"

"It matters to the Head," Kovy added slyly, and earned a raised brow by the man in question.

More murmurs.

"Let's wrap this up." The Head cleared his throat. "Unless anyone has anything substantial to add, I think we're done. I appreciate this panel but my plans have not changed, but you don't need to worry about that tonight," he said, standing up. "Everyone, go enjoy the rest of your evening."

A few grumbles. Handshakes and rumblings of _Happy Christmas_ between officials.

Kovy shuffled around a bit, waiting until the others'd left before grabbing her hand and pulling her through the manor, into a secluded hallway.

He waved a mistletoe over their heads. "Kove—" He stumbled in for a kiss, cutting her off.

Seconds passed in bliss. Her head spun.

He finally pulled away and looked at her, smiling quietly; he was unshaven, red rimming his eyes.

"Are you alright?" she said, her voice breathless.

He leaned in to rest his forehead against hers. "You're very cute to care," he gave a chuckle. "I don't think anyone's drawn me so many hearts before."

Heat crept up her face. "I'm not subtle."

"You're not," he agreed, before tilting his head slightly to kiss her again. "To tell you the truth, I don't really like coffee that much."

"You don't? Why didn't you say something?"

"I like the girl who brings me the coffee," he said, leaning in again to peck her mouth, again and again. "She's amazing. She's really bloody hot. If she's not doing anything tonight, I'm, erm, _hoping_ she'll want to come over to my place and make my night. She'd be the highlight of my Christmas... And who knows if I'll get another one?"

A pause settled. Regret at having said these words waned in his eyes.

"What does that mean?" she whispered, pulling away, watching him ruffle his hair in frustration.

"Sorry," he gave a hefty sigh. "I'm a bit, er—physically frustrated right now, if you catch my drift."

She said nothing.

Slumping forward, Kovy rested his head on top of hers, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. "All the _goddamn_ work," he vented. "That's our life, haven't you noticed? That's all we do. We work, and then we'll die. Maybe we'll capture Graham Paisley in between. Do you know how long wars last, by the way?" He sounded bitter. "The others wanted to go out and get wasted. They can do that. I just want to feel nice on the one night I get off this month. Is that so bad?"

"There's no guarantee they'll be a war—"

"Yes there will. Don't kid yourself."

"Not if we capture Graham Paisley."

"You heard the Head, the crime cell's massive now, it's practically self-sustaining. Even if we kill him, someone else will just rise up and take his place." He sounded miserable. "And look, it doesn't matter right now. I know I'm never going home. I don't want to talk about it, I just want to—Mhm" He leant in to anxiously press kisses up her neck. One hand disappeared up her dress. Fingers traveled slowly up her inner thigh, gently massaging, until they were able to graze her most sensitive flesh. The shock made her lurch back.

The touch felt… nice, in a tingly way that she couldn't really explain, nicer than what she could've imagined. She felt light-headed. He must've felt the heat rising from her skin, since he breathed, "I'll make you feel good everywhere, I promise."

She stroked the nape of his neck, trying to soothe him. "Maybe if you went out, you might meet someone," she suggested quietly.

"Why would you want me to meet someone else?"

"I don't know," she said. He turned to look at her, confused, and her eyes flickered elsewhere. "I just think…It's ok if it's not me. You've got such a lovely face and smile and everything. I'm happy I get to see you every day, and I'd be ok if I just got to care about you. I just want you to be alright." Even as she said all this, hurt panged in her chest again and again. What was wrong with her?

Kovy frowned. "You're silly," he decided, leaning in to kiss her.

She tilted her face away, and leant back, out of his reach.

"I guess. I don't know. I just don't feel so good right now. I'm really not good at—"

"Rose!"

An ache filled her chest as she slid past him, straightening her clothes as she made her way through the ballroom where Ministry officials stood chattering and mingling without looking back. She'd never have imagined something like this happening to her a few months ago. It hadn't even been in the realm of possibility—her life had never allowed for it before.

 _I know I'm never going home._ For so long the words had been buried inside her as well, quietly suffocating, and she felt them rise to the top of her skin at his touch. She tasted the vitriol on his tongue and it woke something she'd nearly forgotten. It all began to sting, all over again.

.

Heels clattered against marble, approaching a secluded doorway. She took a moment to draw her breath.

As she entered, she took in the grandness of the room, her boss sitting on his arm chair with wine glass in hand, taking occasional sips as he stared grimly into the hearth fire. Rather than socializing with guests, here he was, tucked away in his own private study. It occurred to her that this would be his Christmas. She felt a vague relief knowing that, when it came to it, at least she had Hugo.

The Head gave a tired side-glance.

"I appreciated your comments during dinner, Weasley," he muttered, fiddling with his rings. "They were….unexpectedly convincing."

She kept her tone even. "Thank you, sir."

"The others won't lose much sleep over taking this stance, but be forewarned, the public won't be kind to you. You're a political figure now; it is up to you to behave like one." A pause. "Keep a sharp eye out at all times."

"Of course, sir."

He nodded, and looked a bit lost for words. "Well…that's it for tonight then…Merry Christmas, Weasley. Off you go."

In the dim lighting, silence stretched between them.

"Yes, Weasley?"

"I know you're still choosing people for the Ordine Corvis investigation up in the Highlands. I wanted to ask, sir. If you'd consider me too."

The man looked up in surprise. "Well," he said, sounding uncertain. "Are you sure that's wise?"

"Well, to be frank. I'd just like to get out of London for a while," she said quietly. "That's all."

The Head gave her a long, deliberating look. "A psyche evaluation will be needed," he stated. "I'm reluctant to send you if another bombing is projected to take place. You didn't recover so well from the last, did you?"

She held back a flinch. "I'm better now, sir. I just want to help," she said.

"I'll think about it. Ask me after New Year's."

With that, he picked up his cigar and lit it; a cold dismissal.

She slipped out without another word, her insides squirming.

If Graham Paisley was planning an attack somewhere in the Highlands, then she was only wasting time in London. She had to track him down and bring this all to an end, so no one else had to die, so Kovy could finally go home like he deserved to. What would she do if she found the crime lord? Kill him? She'd never killed anyone before. Would she have the nerve? Deep down, a hardening conviction: she would.

.

"Rose."

She looked up. It was Draco Malfoy.

"What?" she said, unable to keep out bitterness from her voice.

His brows raised, clearly offended. "Excuse me?"

"Look, I know you're not in favor of the proposal, but I'd rather not spend the rest of Christmas Eve debating it."

Mr. Malfoy raised his chin. "That's not what I wanted to talk about."

"Can you please move then?" she said, feeling exhausted. "I don't want to do this right now."

"Rose—"

"I know you sent Scorpius to France to get him away from me. I got his letter." She moved past him and down the stairs. "You don't need to rub it in. Just let me head on my merry way—"

"Headstrong—just like Granger," he interrupted, seething now. "Are you even going to bother to listen to what I have to say?"

Mid-crawl down the elaborate stairway, her legs froze. She swallowed a breath.

"Why should I listen to someone that hates me?"

"I don't hate you. You're too young for me to hate. For Merlin's sake, you're my _son's_ age."

At these words, her eyes blurred, and she furiously wiped them with her shawl. She turned around and Mr. Malfoy was looking at her, with an odd, but not unkind, expression.

"You're a smart girl." He nodded. "I know you see the futility of what's happening. No good will come from you playing a role in this power grab between these two, frankly, _outrageous_ men. Your boss and this Graham Paisley figure – they're the same. It doesn't matter who wins. I know you see that."

She didn't respond, somehow couldn't. Her tongue felt trapped inside her head.

"Don't become a vessel from someone else's cruelty." Mr. Malfoy's voice grew soft, as did the rest of his demeanor, and for a touching moment he looked like someone's father. A part of her burned with envy towards Scorpius.

"When you look back on your life, Rose, is this how you want to be remembered? Because you can rest assured that, no matter what happens from here, history _will_ remember you."

She sped down the hall and made a beeline out of the manor, into the frigid cold. Out there, alone with herself, she furiously wiped her eyes, feeling foolish that such measly words could reduce her to tears. Except, they weren't measly. There was so much pressure behind them that she felt she might suffocate.

.

Lorcan Scamander, glasses askew, red scarf hanging around his neck, balanced determinedly over the trail of decorative garden stones lining the pathway outside the manor. He was heading in her direction. She tried her best to pretend not to see him. She'd forgotten he was a ministry employee and had received an invitation to the Head's party as well.

"Rose!" he kept calling, waving both hands at her.

 _Fucking hell._

When she didn't reply, he jumped off, breaking into a run towards her.

She threw off her heels and made an athletic dash, in the other direction, for the gates.

"Hey— _wait."_ He panted, slowing down. "Can I just say one thing?"

"No!"

"Can I just say—" With a flash of apparition, he was wedged between her and the gates. "—that your time is being wasted playing monkey for that imbecile."

Hand gripping his arm, as she tried to shove him away, she said, "You mean the Head of Law Enforcement?"

"Right, him. You're in the wrong profession. You belong in the department of mysteries" —he blocked the gates with his arms even more, talking faster— "and now I'm going to tell you something I'm not supposed to: The Veil might hold the key to fixing what's wrong with Hugo."

She froze, dropping her grip.

"Running experiments is tricky, as you can imagine," he rambled on. "It's all conjecture at the moment, but I wager it can serve as a bridge between the worlds of the living and the dead if we go about it correctly. And if we can do that, hell, I bet we can figure out why your methodology doesn't add up."

A pause.

"His soul," she said quietly.

"Pardon?"

"His soul got torn. That's what went wrong. That's why he doesn't age."

He blinked. "That—err, that's tricky." He rubbed the back of his neck, flustered. "Yeesh. Way to go. A soul loses consistency and becomes extremely volatile when it's severed."

He didn't have to tell her.

"The only way to fix him is if I cross again and recover the missing piece," she shivered, rubbing her bare arms for warmth. "I've always known it. And I've always known that I can't do it."

"Yes you can. I'll help you. No one has to know."

Her head buzzed at these words.

"Look, I can't say that doesn't sound—" She craned her neck around to ensure no one was listening in. She sighed, looking at him. "But I just can't. I shouldn't."

"You clearly want to."

"It doesn't matter what I want."

"And why is that?"

"I don't know. That's just how it's always been."

He looked at her and she looked elsewhere, still shivering.

He shifted on the balls of his feet. "Do you know your parents were friends with my mum in school?" he said, after a moment. "Luna Lovegood. Name ring a bell? Friends with your uncle too."

"So what if she did?"

"If they could trust her, I don't see why you can't trust me."

"Because people aren't their parents."

"Agreed. I'm much saner than my mum. I wager you're a bit wilder than yours."

"Why are you saying all this?"

"I think it could work."

" _What_ could work?"

A sheepish smile. He gestured to the two of them by wriggling his fingers.

She gave an exasperated groan.

"I study death for a living. You bring the dead back," he insisted. "We're _destined_ to be accomplices. You _have_ to see that."

She rubbed at her temples. "Don't you have anything better to do than harass me on Christmas Eve?"

"Alas, no."

An awkward pause stretched between them.

"Your glasses are askew," she muttered.

He flushed, and reached to straighten them. "I have notes I really want to show you," he said, beaming again. "I say we go back to my place and just _dive_ right in. Your brother can come too. I'll make hot chocolate. It'll be fun."

"You want to get started on _Christmas_ _Eve_?"

"Why not? Do you have something better to do?" He was busy adjusting his jacket, getting ready to apparate. He stuck out his hand.

Another pause.

"No," she confessed, taking the hand.

In a whirl of wind they were gone.

* * *

 **Special thanks to the people who commented the last chapter =) I know several of you are waiting to get to the new content, and we'll get there soon, promise. Thanks for hanging in there despite my, err, commitment issues to this story in the past hehe...Anyway, I'm back to finish this for all my old readers. I have no plans to stop Clash updates for any reason-it's just a matter of finding time. Reviews, of course, are always welcome.**


	24. Rise part 2

_Breaking Prophet Headlines:_

 _Post-Dark Wizard Attack, Highland Giants reject Ministry aid._

 _Blood in the Black Forest: Northern Vampire Clan null peace negotiations._

 _Insider Reveals Auror Department Stretched Too Thin._

 _Update on the Ordine Corvis Case: The Search Continues._

.

Rain spattered against the windows of the cramped French bar as Scorpius sat slumped inside, lukewarm butterbeer at hand, staring at the cross-eyed picture of Rose Weasley plastered over paper frontlines. "Why're you making a face, idiot?" he muttered, the corner of his mouth twitching in a betrayal of humor.

Just as someone nearby gave an awkward cough, Scorpius yanked the paper behind a quidditch magazine, ears reddening. Clearing his throat loudly, he pretended to immerse himself in some article about Victor Krum's training regime.

No matter what his father thought, Scorpius did not purchase newspapers to gawk at pictures of his former friend. He did, in fact, _read_ the text.

While the subtle intricacies of turmoil brewing at the Ministry of Magic were lost on Scorpius, he understood that things had gotten really shitty. England was divided between two very radical ideologies.

On one side of the skirmish- a sociopathic crime-lord on a massive killing rampage, who wanted to do away with government and any sort of formal binds on magic. Create a free world. And the way he planned to do this was by showing everyone just how _useless_ the ministry was.

 _Graham Paisley_ _was_ less a person and more a name attached to an idea. A name that could've been anyone.

On the other side there was the man whose title belied his actions, who planned on doing everything in and outside of his power to stop the crime-lord. Security sanctions, questionable surveillance measures; Wizarding England was bugged and tapped and on the fringes of becoming a military state. And to this day Scorpius did not know the Head of Law Enforcement's full name: Vincent…something. For some absurd reason, it had never really come up.

Then, there was Rose—the _Ressurectionist_. She seemed less and less like herself these days. The papers acted as though she was an ex-girlfriend they couldn't make up their mind about: They _condemned_ her for playing a bauble-head of the state, but were quick to spin around and rave about how talented at dueling she was, how quickly she was climbing the ranks for someone so young, how she'd been the one to uncover the clues to Graham Paisley's hidden whereabouts…

What the hell was Rose doing? Scorpius wanted to know. He'd thought about writing to her a few times but couldn't decide what half-arsed joke to open with. They'd parted on pathetic terms, he knew. But he'd bled his _heart_ out on paper for her and in turn she'd only given him three lines.

 _You've got nothing to apologize for._

 _You should go to France. I won't hold it against you, I swear._

 _I'd do the same thing in your shoes._

Kind, calm, bland— they were a fucking disappointment after everything they'd been through together. She wouldn't hold it against him, she said. Because there was nothing holding them together anymore, he knew. There was no heart in her, at least, not for him. He swallowed the sting of this rejection, took it in stride like everything else. _A beginning, not an end,_ he tried to convince himself.

Between work and sleep, he whittled away his time obsessing over every new political development, quietly dreading the next firestorm day. He'd scan paper headlines with his morning coffee and croissant before his shift at the _Croix Saint Picques_ clinic. In the evenings he'd lie in bed listening to the radio, crumbly-eyed, usually a little drunk, letting the voices of fast-talking journalists lull him to sleep. There were reports of riots and small attacks and protestors congregating outside the Ministry atrium just about every week. Nothing as earth-shattering as Little Norton, but it was only a matter of time until someone dropped the ball again.

"Ma—no kidding, _Malfoy_?" slurred a voice behind him.

Shoulders tensing, he turned his neck. And deadpanned.

"James?"

Potter's… _brother_.

The boy stood, whiskey bottle in hand, swaying in his spot, grinning stupendously at Scorpius who couldn't believe his eyes. He vaguely recalled that the Potters had left England after Hogwarts shut down; he didn't know they were in _France_.

James's freckled face was flushed, hair as messy as you'd expect. He was taller and larger than his brother had been and had a more careless air to him. He also looked properly smashed, like he was on the verge of toppling over.

"Wait"—Scorpius hopped up—"easy, _easy_." He grabbed James' arm and propelled him into a nearby booth. The boy fell sideways, sinking into the stained cushions like a deflating balloon.

"Scorp—Scrop— _Scorpee—_ "

"It's Scorpius," he muttered, casting an apologetic look at everyone whose attention in the bar they'd drawn.

" _Scorpius_ _Malfoy_ ," James slurred again, squinting blearily up at him, "My brother's best mate. My…brother…dead brother's… best…mate…"

Scorpius stared for a good, solid minute. And sighed.

.

Christmas lights on snowy pavilion rooftops flickered as Scorpius grouchily trudged down the wide boulevard, past the cafés and the cornerstone patisserie, the barely-conscious James' arm draped around his shoulder. "Haven't told Mum yet….Lily neither…hid the letter…" the boy kept mumbling, lost in his own world, utterly oblivious to the fact that Scorpius was taking him home. But then, the blond was used to being taken for granted.

Foul dragon breath wafted in the air. "Turn your face," Scorpius ordered snappishly, pinching his nose while he swerved to avoid a bit of ice that James stumbled over with all the tact of a Gryffindor. _Oaf,_ that's the word Potter always used for him.

They tread out of the market area, crossing into a neighborhood lined with modestly-sized bungalows.

"That your house there?" he said, gesturing to the only house on the block without any decorations.

"Yeah, that's the one."

Scorpius picked up the pace, pulling him through the snow-ridden yard, eager to get this over with. He promptly dropped the drunk boy on his porch step — "Oi!"— and turned to leave.

"Where're you going?" James groaned, rubbing his lower back.

"Home," Scorpius said stiffly, stuffing his mitted hands into his pockets. "Thanks for the chat, Po—er—James."

The boy looked visibly put off, but nodded. He gave a sullen wave. "Sure thing. You let me know if you need anything while you're in France. Least I could do for my brother's best mate."

Trudging over frozen grass, feet came to halt. Though he had little interest in Potter family drama—didn't really understand it, to be honest—he knew James was partly responsible for his best mate leaving home at sixteen. The fact he recalled this couldn't be ignored and pressed up against his throat like a tightly-coiled ball of heat. "Dunno why you'd give a fuck about your brother's best mate when you didn't give one about your brother," he muttered under his breath.

He turned around to see that James' face had darkened, his eyes falling into his lap.

"You know what he was like," he murmured.

A hot flash of rage hit Scorpius and words welled up in his mouth. "Yeah. I do. And guess what? He was your fucking _brother_."

"He didn't like me."

Scorpius gave a hard, bewildered stare. "That's not an excuse," he gritted his teeth. "You miserable, _miserable_ waste of space."

James looked like he'd been kicked in the stomach.

"You know what your problem is?" Scorpius said furiously, pacing back towards him. "You don't _get_ it. It's not that your brother was cruel or a shitty person or an _outstanding_ arsehole, 'cause believe me, he was all that and more. _That's not the point._ "

James' head bowed, the words sinking his shoulders lower and lower.

"Potter was _miserable_." Scorpius shook in his spot. "Potter didn't like _anyone_. He pushed away anyone who tried to be his friend. Rose tried with him—I reckon—coz she _gets_ that people who claim they don't need anyone are the ones who need someone the most. And I'm not the cleverest but if eleven-year-old me could bloody well see that and you _still_ can't, then—well, I've got nothing more to say to you."

He spun to leave once more, seething with rage, the cold air nipping at his now-wet cheeks. He felt the painful clinch of guilt in his own stomach and decided that this was a terrible Christmas indeed.

"You wanna know how he died at Little Norton?" he hollered over his shoulder. "He died because he turned back around to save Rose. She made it….and he fucking _didn't_!"

.

.

There was a dinginess that blended everything in Lorcan Scamander's house, from the rusted cauldrons to the homemade-looking inventions to the piles upon piles of aged, dusty books sitting on every surface. Delicately made models of creatures hung from the ceiling, and Hugo felt an uneasy sense of movement under his shoes. Trapping a passing flobberworm between his legs and stomping it, he discreetly scraped the green goo onto the burgundy sofa, then heard the _skittering_ of something else and hurriedly lifted his legs.

"Nifflers!" Scamander called from the kitchen. "Sorry about that. They've got a nasty habit of sneaking in from the garden."

His sister was in the kitchen as well, talking with Scamander in low tones about Merlin-only-knew. Annoyed by how long they were taking, Hugo curled up on the plushy sofa, making sure to give a very audible groan. It was bloody two-in-the-morning on _Christmas_ _Eve._

Scamander was not his sister's usual fare. In fact, one might consider him an outrageous opposite to Scorpius Malfoy, who had promised jokes and flying lessons and loads of other fun things, who had disappeared on Hugo without so much as a proper _good-bye._ The boy was more than slightly miffed, and possibly a little heartbroken too.

But in no sane world was Scamander an apt replacement. He reminded Hugo of the cartoon characters he used to watch with grandad on the muggle telly when he was younger, thin as a twig. He had too-thick glasses and wore a tattered overlarge tweed coat that made him look even ganglier, with buttons that were all mismatched colors and sizes. He also used his hands _way_ too much when he talked.

"Here." Rose strode in with two steaming cups, setting one on the ottoman for him. "Lorcan made it."

Hugo scrunched his brow and feigned disdain, but at her cocked eyebrow, shot up and downed it in one go. Even if he didn't like the maker, hot chocolate was hot chocolate.

"Alrighty." Scamander strode in with a stack of papers. Dust exploded into the air as he splayed them all over the ottoman, Hugo and his sister bursting into coughs. "Let's begin." Plopping down on the armchair across, Scamander began very talking animatedly, using his hands.

Hugo's eyelids drooped.

Rose, her legs folded under her on the sofa, nodded along as she jotted down meticulous notes. Hugo's shoulders slouched, growing more and more weary, until the next thing he knew, his head was curled up in her lap. He gave a soft yawn. This was taking too long.

Inches from sleep his mind floated, thinking of all the things he'd rather do than spend his Christmas Eve at a stranger's house. Anything would be better, even practicing spells. After Al's death he'd taken to teaching himself some basic defensive magic, which was harder than it sounded but paid off in the form of a massive confidence boost. He figured, it was the least he could do to honor his cousin's memory.

" _Hugo_."

He lifted his tired head from his sister's lap. Both she and Scamander were staring at him.

"Did you get everything?" his sister said. "Because Lorcan's going to be spending a lot of time with us in the upcoming weeks."

"Err. Can you give me the short version for _why_ that has to happen?"

She gave an exasperated sigh, and Scamander cut in with an, "Allow me." He stared at Hugo with owlish eyes. "I expect that even though your body is 12, you have the mind of a 17 year old?"

"Erm—"

"Bar that, there's not much of a difference," he interrupted. "So, Hugo, let's start from the beginning; why don't you tell me everything you know about the mechanics of soul restoration?"

Hugo blinked dazedly. Rose's eyes shot wide.

She gave Scamander a long, forceful stare, before turning back to him. "Let's make it very simple, all right? Lorcan has been researching the properties of resurrection for a while now, and he's going to help me figure out how to make you grow again. He has resources and some much needed expertise that'll help."

"I also have a litter of kneazles up for adoption. In case you're interested."

Rose pretended not the hear this. "Anyway. What we're preparing to do…isn't, well it isn't necessarily strictly _legal_. But it's important. Lorcan's already sworn to secrecy and I think that necessity pervades that we—"

"Wait, _what_?" Hugo cut in, jolting from his disinterested stupor. "Rose you can't—look, you can't break the law right now. Not with everything else going on."

She swallowed, then looked over at Scamander. "Could you give us a minute?"

"Say no more." Scamander stuck his fingers in his ears, standing up. "If you need me I'll be tending to my kneazles. I've got to brush them thoroughly before setting them down for their nap."

Once he was gone, Hugo turned to his sister. "Please can we leave?" he asked desperately. "He's a complete tosspot. And it's _Christmas_ —you said we'd go out to see a show!"

"We will," she insisted, and her eyes flickered to the perennial tree, charmed with colorful turnips and mismatched decorations. "You can't be twelve forever," she said softly. "You're my baby brother. But I can't keep forgetting that I have to let you grow."

Behind her words was something more, he could sense, that she wasn't telling him. Because for a moment the word _grow_ had sounded like _go_ , and that implication was too terrible to even fathom.

"There are things I haven't told you about your resurrection," she confessed, and closed her eyes then, as though focusing on making some long-forgotten Christmas wish. "Mistakes I need Lorcan's help to fix. Listen—I know he's a bit strange but if we don't get this sorted now, we may not get another chance."

"But it's _Christmas_ ," he whined. "Can things not be serious for just _one_ night?"

Rose drew out a long sigh while he begged 'please, pretty please' again and again.

"Grab your coat," she relented and Hugo nearly fell off the sofa in joy. "Let me just tell Lorcan we're leaving."

.

A muggle show. A muggle show meant motion pictures or as they called it –a _movie_ – because that was the most magical sort of muggle entertainment there was. You started watching and in mere seconds you were transported to a whole different world. Usually, a better one.

As the lights in the theatre began dimming, Hugo cozied up in his seat, excitedly clutching at his bucket of popcorn. He could hear light snoring beside him.

"Rose, it hasn't even started!" he hissed, tugging at her arm. "You can't fall asleep until at least _halfway_ though. That was the deal, remember?"

"It's just James Bum," she mumbled grouchily, shifting away.

" _Bond_ ," he corrected her.

"No, it's _Bum_ ….he's got a nice bum."

Hugo gave an irritated stare. Trust his sister to focus on the wrong things.

She closed her eyes, reclining her head back. "Wake me when there's a shirtless scene."

Hugo made a disgusted barfing noise; it didn't matter if he was being too loud. They were the only ones there in the theater. "James _Bond_ 's more than eye candy, Rose, he's the _coolest_ muggle superhero. He's got all these cool, expensive suits and cars and muggle contraptions. He always beats the bad guys. And he _always_ gets the girl."

"But don't his girlfriends always die?" She put her feet up on the chairs in front, making herself comfortable. "I don't see why you'd want to be like him, Hugo. No offense, but it sounds like he's got a horrible life."

Hugo blinked, before sulking. Trust his sister to _completely_ focus on the wrong thing. The magic of James Bond was that no matter how many dreadful things happened to him or how many of his girlfriends died, it never fazed him. He always knew what to do next. He was always suave and charming and made things return to normal. Even if the world was in danger, it wasn't _actually_ in danger; you never got too scared because you knew everything would be alright by the end.

You felt safe.

No wizard superheroes were that cool.

.

.

Shrieks echoed from the house surrounded by a dozen aurors. Lights flashed alarmingly inside the second-story windows. Rose saw a burst of green behind the shattered panes, heard the wounded wail of a child, and her heart gave a dizzying throb. Her and Officer Roderick's units stood outside the house, wands raised, following orders to be diplomatic when there was a probable chance that the family held hostage in the house would die. _Was_ dying.

Diplomacy, her ass.

"I'm going in." She ducked under Florian's aimed wand and sprinted across the wired lawn.

"Rose!" someone called behind her – maybe Cynthia – but she didn't turn back, acting on the impulsive _tick-tick-tick_ inside her skin. With one clean hex, she blasted the front door from its hinges. Planting a careful leg inside, she surveyed the living room: silent, empty; broken glass powdered the carpet under the broken-in windows. She raised a finger behind her, letting the others know to wait.

A violent thud from above, followed by a pained shout of ' _Dad_!'

 _Fuck._ Anxiety curled like fangs inside her stomach and she dashed upstairs to a child's bedroom. Loosening the charm on the locked door, she opened it an inch and found a family of three crouched behind a set of twin bed; a sobbing boy and girl huddled behind an older brother, around fourteen, his cheeks tear-stained.

A man and women –the parents – lay dead by the window.

 _No no no…_

"Why, hello, baby Officer," said a mocking voice, and the door jolted open, revealing the two men standing on the other side of the room; large, heavily-tattooed Crows.

Her arm raised automatically, pointing a wand at their faces.

"Drop your wands," she said, make sure to sound as authoritative as possible.

They exchanged a look and burst out laughing. "Or what?" one jeered.

They wouldn't her seriously. She didn't match their profile of a cool, suave 'James Bond-esque' wizard – someone worth being intimidated by. She knew this.

" _Carpe Retractum,"_ one hissed, shooting a crackle of orange light that clasped one of the younger children – the girl – around the neck like a chain. Her head slammed against the bedstead as she was yanked across the room, into his hairy arms.

"Please," the brother sobbed, "Don't hurt—"

"Quiet!" barked the Crow, clasping the young girl's neck with his grizzly hand. He turned to Rose with a steely gaze. "Tell your men outside to stand down or I'll strangle her."

His grip around the girl's neck tightened, one sharp nail stroking the soft flesh under her chin as he clutched her face with his other hand. She gave pained whimpers, eyes pleading. _Do something._

Rose made no sudden movements. Her fingers clenched contemplatively around her wand.

"What do you want?" she said.

"We want to watch you burn, all the lot of you," the accomplice hissed, a grin dashing across his tattooed face like a knife. "Burn you right into the ground, you filthy ministry-loving _cunts_ — _Avada Kedavra!"_

She jolted aside; a near-miss. Her heart pounded against her ribcage.

There were nothing behind this merciless slaughter of innocent lives besides a desire to publically shame the Ministry. The more cases the aurors failed to solve, the more people they failed to save, the worse they'd look. A stupid power-play, in which all lives became dispensable.

Fury gripped her inside, surging through her. She shot between the twin-beds in a disorienting movement, blocking the bodies of the other two children with her own, a hex flying from the tip of her wand that threw the larger man backwards, against the bookshelf. _"Gah!"_ As books and knickknacks rained down onto him, she lunged forward and grabbed the little girl, spinning and throwing her into the brother's arms.

"Run!" she shouted at them, before turning to cast a powerful deflection charm.

There was a whirl of wind and smoke; the children dashed out of the room while she shielded their bodies with her own, blocking the hexes shot at them through haze with split-second wand flicks. Her wrist ached.

A large hand reached through the smoke and grabbed her arm….and _threw_ her across the room. She flew straight into the vanity set, the skin of her forehead jamming against broken glass. Droplets of red scattered across vanity wood. Everything spun. A wand jabbed into the fleshy side of her wounded thigh as she screamed out in pain. Before she could make sense of it, a hand grabbed her waist and _slammed_ her body to the ground.

The moment in which her eyesight went black must've gone on forever. Head, still-throbbing, lolled to the right, making out the vague image of a door that was locked once more. _Rose! Rose!_ She could hear ceaseless pounding from the other side.

Two hands gripped her arms against the floor as a painful mass settled onto her legs. The straddling weight of a man. She couldn't breathe.

A grizzly hand reached for his studded belt, eager to humiliate her in the worst ways one can humiliate a girl.

She thrashed back violently, hissed and snarled, fighting against the force of his thighs parting hers. Then, a flicker of a second; her small wrist slipped from his sweaty palm and she quickly grasped her wand – laying beside her – and _jammed_ it into his eye-socket with no remorse, so deep it must've torn into his skull. _"Arg!"_ he quickly leapt off her, staggering backwards.

She rose to her feet, breathing heavily. Slickness trailed down her cheeks that she wasn't sure were tears or blood.

 _Rose!_ Pounding sounded but didn't make it to her ears. The room was in fuzzy shambles as she swayed in her spot, and in that moment she must've been floating. She'd forgotten everything she knew about magic, dark and light and everything in between. Or maybe didn't care. The parts inside her that pined for vengeance, the bones and the teeth, clenched together like magnets, with an untapped fury _aching_ let loose. It was more than fitting that the voice of reason in her head sounded like Albus – the devil's seduction:

 _The world beats you down, bloodies you within an inch of your life if you let it. Don't you see, Rose? There is no justice._

He'd been right. No one granted you justice. It had to be sought, and in drastic cases even forced.

 _Avada Kedavra._

Crow screams echoed at the spell cast by the end of her wand, illuminating the dark corner of the room.

God's light was green.

 _._

Of all people to have possibly come searching after her, it was Cynthia.

Rose peered upwards as the closet door cracked just a smidge, allowing a faint beam of light in.

"Rose, the kids are looking for you. They wanted to thank you for saving them."

"Tell them I've left."

Cynthia frowned, but said nothing. She crawled into the small space beside Rose and draped an arm over her shoulders- an odd gesture, but not unwelcome.

"I'm sorry," she said, quietly, "I could get Kovy if you'd rather have him he—"

"No, _no_. Don't do that. I'd rather have you."

Cynthia smiled softly, wearily, in the dim light.

"We're allowed to use Killing Curses. You're well within the law. Especially considering what _that bastard_ tried to do."

Rose was too numb to try to explain herself.

"I'm fine. I promise… I'll be fine."

"Good." Cynthia squeezed her in a one-armed hug, before shifting away. "Anyway, the kids. They wanted to ask you…" She paused, lowering her voice. "They wanted to know if the Ressurectionist would be able to bring their parents back."

With a sigh, Rose buried her head in her lap. "Tell them I've left."

.

.

In the large echoing Death Chamber of the Department of Mysteries, dimly lit and rectangular, it stood: the Veil, atop a stone dais raised from a twenty-feet sunken stone pit. A tattered black curtain hung over the archway, rippling back and forth by an invisible wind; A physical manifestation of the barrier between the living and dead. A bridge between the two worlds. In theory.

The entire room felt cold and she heart strange whispers, cloyingly inviting. Her head was heavy. She closed her eyes and shuddered, her insides aching with a desire that she did not understand and that frightened her.

"Rose!"

Something yanked her back and her eyes fluttered open, to find that her feet had descended down the steep steps into the pit towards the Veil. She stood an alarming mere inches from the fluttering curtain.

Lorcan was kneeled atop the steps, a firm clutch on the back of her robes. "You don't want to get that close," he panted.

She tore her gaze away from the Veil with some difficulty. "Sorry." She was breathless. Lorcan pulled her up and led her out of the Death Chamber.

"I've never seen the Veil have such a strong pull on anyone before."

"Do you think it's because—"

"You brought back the dead?" He nodded "I think so. You've crossed once before. It would make sense for you to have a heightened connection to the other realm…to the spirits that linger in the world beyond our own."

She bit the inside of her cheek. "Do you think I could cross again?"

He stopped and peered at her through his glasses, quizzically. "I …don't know." He started walking again, faster now. Rose sped up to match his pace. "I think that for the time being, you should avoid being alone in the Death Chamber."

What they were doing was not only illegal but highly dangerous. They'd decided on conducting researching at night, as it made it easier for Lorcan to sneak her into the Department of Mysteries. Not to mention, she had work during the day.

Which meant she'd be _exhausted_ for work tomorrow.

Lorcan, meanwhile, seemed to really come alive in his element—not that he wasn't always brimming with obnoxious energy—and felt compelled to give a very detailed tour of the department, with a twenty-minute history lesson of every room, ignoring the fact that she punctuated his every sentence with an exasperated sigh.

 _"And this here is the Brain Room, wherein Mortimer Salwick first isolated the very first dendrite in 1765, following the discovery of—yes, impatient looking ginger in the front. Do you have to go the bathroom?"_

 _She blinked._

 _"Lorcan, I'm the only one here," she said, annoyed._

 _He beamed in reply._

 _"I know, but I've never gotten to give a tour before, so just play along, ok?"_

Although, once they'd arrived in the Hall of Prophecies, even she had to slow down to awe at silvery orbs glinting atop the shelves. "They're beautiful," she murmured, her fingers grazing the surface of a glowing orb. It felt cool under her skin.

Lorcan beamed. "I'm glad you think so," he admitted. "I was hoping you'd fall in love with this place too." He took a few steps ahead of her, arms out, spanning the room in full and shouting, "It's pretty amazing, isn't it?"

The words echoed through the room.

He turned back to her, a bit flustered. "The reason I'm being so thorough with this tour is—well, because I really think your future is _here_ , Rose. Investigating the mysteries of magic. Once all this war nonsense is over. I foresee it."

A smile betrayed her face; his casual optimism was not only rare but _infectious_.

"Oh, you foresee it, do you?" she teased.

He grinned. Contorting his face, he waggled his fingers in the air, with a trance-like walk in her direction. " _I foresee it_ …."

She swatted his hands away, laughing lightly. "Dummy." At twenty-six years old, Lorcan Scamander was just a taller Hugo.

"I'm not a dummy. Do you know I scored a perfect set of OWLS?"

"Course I do. I properly stalked your files before I agreed to this. Had to make sure you weren't a serial killer, didn't I?"

He feigned a scandalized expression. "Oh, I _see_. Why? Do you make friends with serial killers often?"

"Occasionally," she murmured, looking elsewhere. "And I never said we were friends."

Lorcan's smile twitched, but he quickly recovered, clearing his throat. "Anyway… I haven't shown my office yet. That's where we'll be working the majority of the time." He hastily led her out of the room and towards what he said was the center of the floor, a cylindrical barrister-like structure with a dozen doors marked with names— they entered the one labelled _L. Scamander_ in large official letters.

"Rose, explain to me again….how did it happen?" Lorcan asked her, quill in hand, sitting round his giant work table while she paced back and forth. "I think I've got all the parts. But you need to slow down—you told me you tore your brother's soul; you didn't tell me _how_?"

"It wasn't on purpose."

"Why were you using soul magic in the first place?"

Silent, she turned it over in her head.

She turned at him sternly. "I want a vow that what I'm about to tell you won't leave this room."

"Of course Rose, I—"

"No, I want _the_ Vow."

He stared for a moment, dumbstruck. Then nodded.

"We'll need a third person though," he said, standing up. "Wait here." And disappeared from the room.

He returned with a short, ancient-looking, bald goblin who had a broom clasped in his right hand.

"This, here, is Oaky." Lorcan beamed, patting the goblin's shoulder. "He's part of the janitorial staff. He doesn't read the papers. Or understand English. Or care much about things. But if it makes you feel better, I can wipe his immediate memory after just to be safe."

Her brows raised. "That's pretty…ruthless."

"Oaky won't mind," Lorcan assured her, and began setting up things for the ritual. The ancient-looking goblin said nothing, standing grimly beside them, clasping their wands. As they held hands, Lorcan swore not to reveal what was shared with him to a single soul. A thin tongue of flame issued from Rose's wand and wound around their conjoined hands like hot wire. Once the ceremony was over, Lorcan calmly escorted Oaky from the room.

When he returned, she saw a flicker of discomfort in his walk.

"So you did wipe his memory," she said. A query, not an accusation.

He nodded wordlessly. "It's better that I do, isn't it? I mean….it's not a _nice_ thing to do, but the last thing we want is take any chances with people finding out." A pause. "One must do what is necessary for the pursuit of higher knowledge, wouldn't you agree?"

She opened her mouth, then closed it.

"It's not about any higher knowledge….it's about my brother. I'm doing this for him."

"Love," he said, smiling kindly, "is another worthy ambition. I have a brother too so I admire the pursuit. Now shall we begin?"

She nodded, swallowing her nerves, well aware he wouldn't be admiring it for very long.

"What do you know about horcruxes?" she asked.

"Only what I've read about in your Uncle's biography. I know that they're a highly dangerous brand of dark magic that Voldemort used in order to evade death. He made them by severing the s—" Lorcan stopped mid-sentence, and stared, mouth in awe. She could see his heart sink on his face.

"What did you do?" he whispered.

Her eyes narrowed. "I broke it down—the method of making a horcrux. I dissected it. I took what I needed. All I needed to know was how to attach a soul to a vessel, a body…that's what I took."

"So…you didn't _mean_ to sever his soul."

She fidgeted with the hem of her shirt, pacing faster. "That was a mistake. I…I didn't account for how difficult the procedure would be. His soul severed just as I was pulling it back across the threshold."

"But I don't understand. The condition of a horcrux is a sacrifice, a death. To bind his soul to his body, you would've had to kill someone."

She was silent.

He stared, dubious. "You killed your brother."

"He was going to die anyway. I sped up his death so I could use the sacrifice to bring him back. Just as he was dying I crossed over with him and pulled him back."

His mouth twitched. He was so intent it looked almost unnerving. "Do you realize that you've submitted your own soul to eternal damnation?"

"You don't understand—"

I don't think _you_ understand Rose. Even if you didn't make a horcrux for yourself, you still used the procedure. You won't find _any_ relief in the afterlife."

"I'm not worried about the afterlife," she snapped. "I'm worried about _this one."_

A startled blink.

She closed her eyes and sighed. "I don't know what will happen to me after I die," she said, a tremor in her voice. "I can't really think about that right now. I just want to make my brother whole again. I have to do it before something happens to me." She could feel sickness in her bones, the guilt of it quietly eating away at her. "I brought him back but I can't die knowing I only did the job halfway. I need to know that I've saved him fully because _none_ of this fighting matters otherwise and I'll never be able to move _on_."

He was looking at her with a strange, pitying look. "You're mad."

Tears gathered in her eyes. "I know."

He looked shocked. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a handkerchief and handed it to her.

"But I'll help you." He nodded. "Sometimes, you have to be mad in order to get things done."

.

.

Harry was eighteen-years-old when he met the man called Death.

It happened on a crisp, sunny day. Surrounded by tresses of green, shirt thrown aside and legs stretched out in front of him, he lay basking in the sun lost in idle daydreams about Ginny, on the taste of her mouth and the crinkles that formed around her eyes with every brilliant smile, and every piece of warm, freckled skin he'd yet to chart. He smiled hazily, imagining what it'd feel like to have her body against his, and decided he'd make it up to her when he returned. She'd have all of him, once his head was in the right place. Once he'd cast off all his ugly thoughts.

Such a shocking victory over Voldemort had left him numb, unable to sleep for _weeks_.

So he'd left. Left and traveled the world, shifting between locations so frequently and inconspicuously that even he didn't know where he was most of the time. He liked it. Enjoyed the spontaneity more than anything, how it left him light on his toes, reckless and carefree, as there was a weight he desired desperately to escape which could not be described more adequately than just being a _wrong_ sort of feeling. It was more than grief. It was a sense of disillusionment with the world, with how events had unfolded.

Birds chirped feverishly overhead while a glorious clear blue lake flanked him at the right. Once it had grown far too hot, he stood and ran headfirst into the lake, hollering at the top of his lungs because he could, because he was young and alive and no one could stop him. He missed his friends, sure, but in that moment he celebrated being alone.

He was not alone.

Short fabric billowed around his thighs like jellyfish as he waded through the lake, savoring the cool water and the lightness of his body. That is, when something cold nicked the bottom of his toe. His body froze, tensing up, and waited…as it moved upwards, hard like steel but with the slippery consistency of flesh, crawling up his foot and wrapping around the entirety of his thigh—it _yanked_ him down.

Water sloshed and he sputtered, arms flailing, desperately trying to grab onto something. A magical flash of light. Eyes blurred, teeth gritted as he was warped through a furious channel of water, his breath tight in his chest.

Within seconds he was thrown back onto land. Shivering, he collapsed on slick dirt. He lifted his neck to look around.

Darkness.

A flicker of light and eyes briefly spotted flesh and hair: the silhouette of a man. It neared, morphing and fluctuating until it was unrecognizable as human, instead, a _shape._ One that continuously stretched and warped to become a part of the darkness, part of the very air.

 _"Do you know what fascinates me about you, Harry Potter?_ "

Fear panged at hearing his own name in such a foreboding tone. His breath held tight inside his ribcage, he felt a chilling appendage grab hold of his ankle once more and snapped away, shifting until his back hit the cavern wall, the icy feeling spreading through the blood in his veins. Another flash of light—sun-light—as the silhouette drew closer, became larger.

 _"You have never chased power…have never craved it…unlike the others. Your whole life, you have never wanted anything more than peace and the company of your loved ones. And once you finally have it, what do you do? ...You leave it all behind."_

Tentacles lunged at him, forcibly grasping both his arms while he tried to yank them away, and the face finally became visible by a glint cast by faint sunlight through a vague opening above. The face… was like a mixture of people, but not anyone in particular, holding an uncomfortable blankness.

The eyes were pitch black, hypnotic.

"I—I didn't do it," Harry heard himself gasp, shivering, unable to look away.

 _"Didn't… do what…?"_

"D-didn't k-kill him."

 _"Certainly you did. You completed the prophecy. Neither can live while the other—"_

A hoass, miserable laugh wracked from his mouth. "Right. I beat Voldemort with an Expelliarmus charm. I—I can't explain it, and no one will ever believe me, but whatever it was that killed him… I _know_ it wasn't me."

A contemplative pause followed this.

 _"Why did you leave?"_

Harry gathered his nerve, and breathed. "Being the Chosen One, and everything else they're expecting me to be…I'm not made for it. I needed some time…to sort out my head."

" _I…see. Alas, you could love and he could not. Did that not give you the upper hand? You drew strength from your companions, thriving in the company of others."_

Silence.

 _"Ahh, you felt compassion for the Dark Lord, did you not?"_

He squeezed his eyes, before opening them once more. "I… asked him to feel remorse. If he'd done that, if he surrendered, then maybe—"

 _"But you did not truly kill him, did you? You could not, once the old man had shown you those memories. You saw the similarities. Two orphans, bound together by a terrible prophecy. Perhaps you wonder, how things would've turned out had you been in his shoes. Perhaps you feel all fate did was flip a coin."_

"I got lucky," he said, quietly. A private confession for the darkness.

This was followed by a pause, a gleam of _something_ in the creature's stare.

 _"Allow me to…enlighten you on a little fact, my young friend"_ —tentacles wound tighter along his wrists— _"What you know of fate is wrong. It does not flip coins, nor does it choose its victors lightly"_ —the faceless face jerked forward suddenly, stopping inches from his— " _You vanquished the dark lord because it was in your_ ** _design_** _._ "

Harry swallowed his shiver, unable to look away from the dead eyes that bore so unflinchingly into his.

 _"The book of history_ ," the creature hissed, tilting its long neck to the side, _"is a fascinating text once you've had a chance to read it in full, filled with pages of wizards like Tom who have strived to challenge Death time and time again. And none have ever succeeded…Now, why do you suppose that is?"_

"I—I don't know." Words escaped him in a shudder.

The teeth curled in a sliver of light.

 _"It is because_ ** _I_** _will it."_

.

.

Albus was nineteen-years-old when he met the man called Death.

On a dark, smoky day in a town called Little Norton, scarred and bruised, half-conscious, mind in shambles and flames licking his limbs—

 _"Awaken."_

For the longest time—unsure whether from his very first steps or his very first set of homicides— he'd known his path was different than his father's. Harry Potter, who would've died to preserve the world, had raised a boy wired for his own selfish survival. And for _ages_ , the boy had wondered…. _why?_

On some level he was aware that he desired the same things that all Great and Terrible wizards in history sought; excellence in its highest form; power, control, immortality; in Sixth Year he'd managed to humor the pangs of greed that forced him to seek out the latter in the form of unicorn blood. But when it came to it, he couldn't bring himself to _swallow_ —

[didn't strike a chord]

Immortality

[ _pass_ ]

Power was trickier. A functional entity, uninteresting for its own sake but could be used to further grander magical schemes. He preferred to be in a state of power than not, naturally, but having spent so much time only with Scorpius and Rose, he found their company more…ideal…than to that of legions of blind followers. It sounded… strange to admit this so freely to himself now, when he knew he'd probably never see the pair again and [change the subject] and furthermore, he felt annoyed by Graham Paisley and all his bomb dropping and hell-raising, which heightened desire to end the man in as brutal a way as possible.

Confrontation was unavoidable. And quickly approaching.

He and Death were in the place that was neither here-nor-there, in the courtyard at the center of his manor, a place riddled with lush trees, overgrown vines, and a festering sense of ruin. Death was in his human form today, dressed in long white robes, standing behind, observing keenly while he shot wandless hexes at targets over the fountainhead; he had refused to walk into such an unpredictable fight with Graham Paisley without at least one new trick up his sleeve.

Wandless magic; he'd been fascinated by the concept for some time, been training himself in it quietly, making humble strides.

Meanwhile, Death was a master of the craft.

It was only fitting that Death teach him.

Not that he trusted the creature even the slightest; Death wore two, equally dangerous faces, one of a man trapped forever in his youth as though he'd drunk from the elixir of life, achieving the ideal state of immortality—

[Death was a fraud]

Meanwhile, the other face was a…horror, one he found better not to think about. Dozens of wisps for limbs, claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses, and a darkness that spread and consumed with endless hunger – a fleshless nigh-black monstrosity that fueled a stream of interminable nightmares.

There was no sleep to be had.

Death had molded him a prosthetic to replace the arm he'd lost in the bombings. It wasn't of flesh or bone or plastic, but of _magic_. He couldn't feel anything with it, not pain, nor water, nor—and he could only presume—the touch of another. But it moved _with_ him, unusually strong and durable, improving the precision and strength of his magic, both with and without a wand. A weapon in its most refined form. He pondered what Rose would make of it but immediately made to erase that thought.

"A wound," the voice mused, from behind.

Albus, focused intently on casting a hex into the tiny pigeonhole opposite of the courtyard, didn't falter.

"What was that?" he said.

"Nothing," Death said wryly,

He ignored this, a flash of red light swiftly blasting the birdhouse off its hinges. Smirking in triumph, the fingers of his prosthetic curled at his side.

"Excellent work," chuckled the creature, following behind as Albus stalked back to the manor.

There was no peace of mind; like a dark cloud, Death loomed everywhere he went, reading his surface thoughts with the intrusiveness of—he could only imagine—an overzealous mother. Even in the bathrooms, when he was alone with himself and the mirror, he could feel the chill of empty eyes drilling into his bare skin.

Not that Albus was shy, in any physical way, or a stranger to leery stares from others. But this was a _man_ —or an ageless creature that resembled a man—and the dynamic was…uncomfortable. Death did not seem to understand privacy or human boundaries, perhaps, did not even comprehend that his actions bore a homoeroticism that the nineteen-year-old Albus, a wizard but still a boy in other respects, lacked the capacity to deal with. He had to tread carefully, without causing grave offense, and without behaving like cornered prey. He reasoned Death was testing his tolerance for unsettling behavior; an exercise in fear, nothing more.

He focused on gauging his own reflection in the mirror; No permanent burn damage, bruises, or blemishes bore his skin; he looked just as he had before the bombings, although perhaps a bit too thin, which would have to be remedied.

"Awfully concerned about your appearance, aren't you?" said the voice, sly and slippery.

The figure loomed behind him in the cramped bathroom; a shape, shifting and morphing, into another version of him as it drew close. "My, my, aren't we handsome?" The doppleganger emerged in the mirror.

"I'm not concerned, just relieved." Pointedly ignoring the creature's proximity, Albus slicked a comb through his wet hair and turned to watch as his box of gloves flew in from the wandless _accio_ he'd cast earlier [His prosthetic hand was a lighter color than his real hand, and the contrast bothered him immensely]. He slid them on and flexed the prosthetic as he did every so often to ensure it still worked, clasping his wand between his gloved fingers.

"Why?" The doppleganger's face, leery with a smile, loomed over his shoulder. "Did you worry that you would turn into a creature like Voldemort? He did not know, as I do, that there are techniques in magic to prevent such bodily erosion. If you like, I could…show you."

Taking in the startling coyness of the creature's demeanor as it morphed back to its former self, Albus swallowed his murderous flare of revulsion. "Another time."

"Do you know what I find fascinating about you, my young friend?" Death did not seem to notice —or care for— the discomfort he caused, trailing in a half-circle close behind him, shooting gratuitously keen looks. "You do not worship love. You are not beholden to it. You seem to exist in spite of it. Perhaps, in order _to_ spite it. And yet, you are not entirely void of the feeling itself. It is a fascinating paradox, and how your father went about creating the effect I simply cannot understand. It is a poison that runs through your veins just as anyone else…but that poison has not yet claimed you."

Death spoke in riddles and with increasingly perplexing madness… using words like _beholden_ and _love_ …girlish poetry…it infuriated Albus who had little patience to make sense of such things. But he swallowed his annoyance and played the role of an abiding, young acolyte. He had done it before, after all.

Though he was certain of one thing: Death was nowhere near the teacher his father had been.

Yet the way Death went on, it seemed the two had known each other.

[how?]

A teasing wisp trailed the back of his heel, caressing as it trailing upwards the hairs on his calf; Albus jerked forward suddenly, a violent flash of anger surging through him, along with a desire to hex the offending creature into pieces.

He did his best to swallow these flashes of fury, however; Death might sense what he was thinking. He was best to be mild-mannered, careful not to react with too much awareness, too much intelligence [not prepared for another fight with such a powerful creature]. He listened whenever Death spoke and absorbed all that was said, committing it to memory to dissect once he'd had a chance to escape to a safer location, like Graham Paisley's lair in the frigid highlands. Of course, this would be after he'd killed the nuisance of a crime-lord and secured the space for himself.

On the night before he was expected to leave, they had dinner in Death's grand dining room.

They were the only two in the room, seated on opposite ends of an extravagant banquet. Albus, determined to regain all the weight he'd lost, had taken second helpings of everything. Death kept a plate in front of him, as he always did, but didn't touch a single moral—it was all for aesthetics.

Death didn't eat.

There was a question to be asked about this, but Albus held back. Instead, he posed another that had been clawing at him for quite some time.

"You called it something earlier… love. You said it was a human idiosyncrasy."

"Yes, because that is precisely what it is."

The room was quiet. "So, what do you mean that I exist in spite of it? Am I….not human?"

Death laughed, a startlingly shrill sound that rang through the grand hall. "You are most certainly human, my young friend. You are the prodigal son of Harry Potter and Ginevra Weasley, who took to magic with great ease. Over time, with training from your talented father, you became an excellent wizard and a durable young man and surpassed all those around you. Nonetheless you are a human being, made of the same painful fleshy innards as the others...what else would you be?"

Albus was silent then, pondering. While he did so, he idly spun a fork around with wandless magic.

"I…don't know," he admitted. "It's never occurred to me before."

"Well, then." Death leaned in, folding his knuckles on the table. A smirk. "What would you _like_ to be, my young friend?"

It was a strange question, one that no one had ever asked him and in the chaos of everything, one he'd forgot to ponder himself. The answer was too simple: he wanted to be an extraordinary wizard…but if there was anything more than that—

[conquering Death: a good starting point]

[erase that thought]

[better yet, store it away]

He wanted to be an extraordinary wizard capable of extraordinary feats. He wanted to tread the great bounds of magic and conquer the mysteries of time and space and his father and [don't say Death] and a more immediate goal: he wanted to kill Graham Paisley because while they didn't know each other personally, the man had been nothing but a pain in the _ass_. And beyond that he _wanted_ …

His eyes clenched forcibly and he was shocked by what he saw.

The image was… something suspended in a bubble, a single moment, not a memory. An idea.

A bright green field. The silhouette of his younger, more carefree looking father, smiling as he swung his beautiful young mother around by the waist, replayed again and again. It did not belong to Albus and he did not belong there. As the couple kissed passionately, he felt absurd to be in the presence of something so intimate. Why was he seeing this?

In an instant, the faces of his father and mother were swapped with faces of his own and another. A flash of red hair, large pools of brown for eyes, and lips _neared_ [breathe, Albus] and something terrible panged inside him and he lurched backwards [breathe, _breathe_ ] and frustration _surged_ through him and he shoved her and she shoved back just like he'd known she would, she was as petty as he. With tears in eyes she spun to leave and he grabbed her arm to yank her back relishing the way she squirmed and wrestled against his grip. He wanted her to kick him slap him to drain her of all the fury she had only for him, so that he could tear her to pieces too and not let himself be made afraid by such a stupid, _insignificant_ —

"You are in pain, Albus."

A blink. He looked up and across the table at Death, who sat watching him quietly, knowingly, with a ghost of a smile.

"You're mistaken."

"I can read your thoughts, even as they grow more erratic, and what you hide is not anger... It is pain. It is the pain of a wound."

"You're _mistaken_ ," Albus repeated a bit more forcefully. He stood, tossing his napkin on the table. "Excuse me."

"It will not do to cling to it, my young friend," Death called after his hurried footsteps down the corridor. "You hold all the potential for greatness, but to _achieve_ it –you must not linger on what is behind you now. Heal your wounds, empty your mind of useless thoughts…let her go."

He halted at the door, head bent. Squeezed his eyes for a moment.

"Done," he said quietly, disappearing outside.


	25. Rise pt 3

On a black winter morning, in the frozen mountains near Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands, a wizard appeared out of thin air.

Clad in a thick bearskin cloak and black gloves that hid an arm woven by Death, he wore dark hollows beneath green eyes like battle wounds. In spite of this fatigue, there remained an impatience to his demeanor, a festering of temper, which powered his strides towards the towering fort, dark cloak whipping furiously behind him against the hurricane-howl of the wind.

Gloved fingers curled, approaching the grand stone doors of Graham Paisley's stronghold; the dark building which stood atop an iced mountain, knife-edged spires rupturing the skyline. A spell, a whisper; it was all it took for painful creaking to echo through the night as heavy slabs of granite drew apart; the deep gurgling noise of hundreds of mechanical wheels turning inside the apparatus. Beneath his feet: the rattling of a small earthquake.

[Wandless magic was, indeed, spellmanship of the gods]

Dozens upon dozens of Crow-heads turned as he trailed into the courtyard, one easy step over the other, down the frozen pathway towards the militaristic castle structure. Bodies swathed in black feathers contorted, trembling as they morphed back to their grisly wizard forms, black robed figures. Human faces: static in stone-cold shock. Wands raised as expected, but not a single one made the move to attack.

The cinching of one unanimous breath.

Up ahead, flanked by dozens of wizards, stood the elusive figure. Moonlight shown down as he stepped forward, illuminating the scarred face dusted over with a cragged beard. The eyes were beady and restless.

The fissured mouth, permanently tilted, etched in a sickly smile.

"Well, well. At long last, we meet… green-eyes."

.

Cold air whistled through the inner hollows of the castle.

Guards stood at grim attention at every corner of the elaborate room, while Albus sat in the center, wrists clamped in chains, torso bound to the back of a chair, watching with intrigue at the crime-lord pacing back and forth in perpetual agitation. Outside his facial deformities, Graham Paisley was ordinary: a set of limbs attached to a body-bag of flesh and bone, topped with raggedy blond hair.

[mortal]

[killable]

"Have you got a name, boy?"

"Evans."

The ceasing of footsteps across cobblestoned floors.

He looked up. "Evans, truly?" A charmed grin flit his twisted mouth. "That's a muggle name. You don't look muggleborn."

Albus leant as forward as he could with the chains, raising one sharp brow. "What do I look like then?"

"I'd wager a Pureblood, the heir to some rich snobby family." There was a note of casual disdain in his voice.

[Graham Paisley: not a pureblood]

"So which family, Evans?"

"Take a guess."

"I don't like guessing," the man dismissed abruptly. Albus watched him pace over to his lengthy study table atop which sat piles of books and sprawled bits of parchment, and begin scrutinizing one of his elaborate texts rather closely. Without looking away, he gave an irritable snap of fingers.

At once, the wands of every Crow in the room rose as if they were a well-oiled apparatus, simultaneously releasing wisps of light that circled Albus, making a small dingy table appear in front of him, along with two cups of tea. The scent of an Earl Grey brew wafted in the air.

Wrists still bound behind his back, he stared dubiously at his cup. "How do I drink this?"

The crime-lord was, at the moment, standing by his study table, either reading or pretending to read something in great detail. "Did you say something, boy?" he said. Albus caught a glimpse of one hand dipping into a pocket, dirtied fingers edging a pointed end.

"Funny."

"Am I being funny, Evans? I wasn't aware."

Without warning— a blur-bright flash of spellfire shot across the room, straight at his chest.

 _Crucio._

Albus didn't flinch, didn't even move. Behind his back, fingers had been drumming in anticipation.

The man lowered his wand, brows raised, impressed.

"So you _are_ the one we've been hearing tales about," he said, the twisted grin returning. "Sorry. Had to check. Now, how the _hell_ do you do that?"

"Magic."

Breaking demeanor, some of the guards chuckled. Graham Paisley sent a daggered glare and they straightened to an effect once more.

Chains squeezed tighter around his torso; Albus tilted his head enquiringly at the crime-lord. "Scared?"

"I don't make guesses. I don't take chances." Charming over a chair and spinning it around, Graham Paisley jerked it closer to the tiny table and sank into it. Legs parted around the chair-back, he sat sprawled, in an informal school-boyish way. "I've gone through a lot of trouble to grab your attention, Evans. I hope you can at least appreciate the effort."

Albus watched the dirtied fingernails drum erratically over the top of the chair-back; starting and stopping wildly, with no tempo, no purpose, no rhyme; pure chaos, though there had to be _something_ … Beady eyes zipped back and forth over him so quickly Albus was certain the man must've been dizzy.

"Did you enjoy the bombings? I thought they set the mood well. Very doomsday and all."

"The whimsicalness of it was a bit lost on me, I'm afraid," he replied, rather icily.

"Sorry to hear that." Graham Paisley picked up his own teacup and took one long whiff, his face contorting with displeasure at once. "Ack. _Filthy_." Without a second thought, he tossed the whole thing over his shoulder.

Splashing of liquid, clatter of china; guards moved hastily to clean it up.

"Magic yields terribly prepared tea," the man explained. He paused for a beat, thinking something over. "You know, Evans, for some time… I thought I'd found in you a kindred spirit."

[wants to exchange trade secrets]

"How long have you been stalking me?" Albus asked, with some impatience now. "Since my very first murders in Little Norton, I expect. I've felt your eyes on my back."

"Ah yes, you'll be surprised by how many of us heard about that. Fifteen men in fifteen minutes by bypassing the Cruciatis Curse. Still can't wrap my head around it — just _how_ does a wizard resist the Cruciatis?"

Albus gave a cruel smirk. "Years of practice."

The man matched his smirk. "Oh, go on now."

"I had a funny father."

"Didn't we all."

Wrists still bound, Albus stretched his torso against the chair with an elaborate yawn. "If you lend me your wand, I can…demonstrate. Teach you the way he taught me."

He was pleased to find that, for a split-second, the man looked appropriately disturbed. But then, that ridiculous grin tore across the face again. "I'm charmed. I didn't think you'd be so charming, Evans." Chair legs screeched he abruptly stood up. "But it won't be necessary, I'm afraid," he said, speaking in brisk tones of airy deceptiveness. "I can extract everything I need from your head."

"You can try."

At this taunt, a muscle twitched in the man's jaw. His face screwed in dense concentration.

[the crime-lord's attempts at Legilimency were _nothing_ compared to Death's.]

In a matter of seconds he was jolted backwards from the mental repellents Albus had set up. Frustration snapped across his face, and a wand raised threateningly once more. He shouted a violent hex and the chair Albus was tied against _surged_ backwards, slamming into the wall. Simultaneously, a sharp shard from overhead snapped and hurtled at him with frightening velocity.

 _Whap!_ It plunged into the wall inches from skewering his face.

[well-calculated miss]

Albus didn't react.

The crime-lord's furious expression waned. "There are, of course, other methods as well," he continued, pleasant and airy once more. "Your friends. I could pluck them off, one by one, like berries. I'd make you watch."

"I'd love to watch."

At this equally facetious response, the jaw clenched again.

"Enough," he snapped, voice gruff. The guards stared in dismay as he made powerful strides over, drawing his wand, and lifted an amused-looking Albus, along with the chair he was tied to, into the air. "You _willingly_ walked into this for that stupid little cripple, didn't you?" he hissed, properly furious now. "All to save him….unless maybe, _maybe_ , it was for the girl."

No response.

"Ah yes. The girl, then." An ugly grin broke. "I'm curious, Evans, why the obsession with her? That good of a shag?"

"It should be self-evident why anyone wants the Ressurectionist by now," he said coldly.

"Going after her is old game though, don't you think? The only thing that makes her interesting is her little secret. And for that, everybody wants her. And it's just no fun going after the same thing _everyone_ wants."

Albus remained silent as he processed this.

"You never wanted the secret to resurrection did you?"

A scowl etched across the fissured mouth. "There's no one I'd want back from the dead."

"It was a ploy for attention."

"A very successful one, as I'm sure you've noticed."

[His initial assumptions about the crime-lord had been correct: The wizard was a ruse, acting without any obvious meaning or cause. He was _advertising_ his power, rallying people behind him under the guise of a revolutionary or anarchist. Assembling an army—]

His body juddered as chair legs slammed to the ground. He looked up in dismay.

"I expect I've made a few enemies with my games," Graham Paisley said, tone light, brisk again, having discarded his previous anger. The man, pacing back and forth now, seemed to fluctuate between two irrational moods.

"More… than a few enemies, I'd say."

The crime-lord grinned. "Why, yes. Thank you for noticing, Evans. You may not know this, but it is a thankless job…dividing people, breathing purpose and rage and passion into them – yours are an _especially_ passive lot."

[yours?]

"No matter. It wasn't hard. The glamor of magic does well to disguise it, but you wizards are just as bloodthirsty and uncivilized as the rest of humanity. At chance encounter with something you don't understand – something like _myself_ – what do you do? You panic. You throw your decency to the wind and rush headlong into battle."

[you wizards?]

"You see…Evans…I've always been excellent at reading a room. It is a skill you pick up once you've been in enough rooms, I think. People…people aren't fools. The ministry has let them down many times. They see that government fluctuates between useless and fascist, and just as the concept of anarchy is an old one… as am I." He paused his manic pacing, looking up. "The fire's always been there, brewing under the surface. All I had to do was stroke the flames a bit."

[Graham Paisley: not a dark lord]

[an opportunist]

[a wizard?]

[ _no_ ]

The motive dawned. "Thank you… for the valuable insight," Albus breathed.

Graham Paisley raised his brows.

"It's no problem, Evans," came the cold chuckle, and the man conjured a wine bottle and two glasses from thin air; he busied himself with pouring, as though he and 'Evans' were friends out for dinner. "Anyway, I didn't ask. How did you sort out where to find me?"

Albus eyed the stream of glittering red liquid. "I received a tip. From a man called Death."

This was, invariably, the wrong thing to say.

Wine bottle slipped from hands, glass shattering, red pooling over the cobbled floors like blood. The crime-lord waved an agitated hand behind him at his guards, who scurried to leave. The demeanor of the room shifted.

Once everyone was gone, he turned back to Albus, looking pale, sickly.

As though he had just seen the gallows fall.

"You've met Cygnus?" he said, his voice quiet.

 _Cygnus._ Albus stored the name away. "I take it he's a mutual acquaintance."

With a hoass and bitter laugh, the crime-lord shook his head miserably to himself. "And he's taken _you_ under his wing now, has he? Sent a little school boy to upend me, has he?" He looked up, with the ugliest, most wrathful sneer imaginable. "That….that… _bastard!_ "

Shards flew as a glass, thrown, shattered against the wall inches from Albus. He didn't flinch.

"Can't keep those filthy claws to himself, can he?" Graham Paisley snarled, pulling his wand and throwing haphazard hexes across the room, hitting tables and pillars and furnishings, as several of his Crows rushed back in to help calm him down. "Bastard! After everything I did for him! _Bastard!"_

Panic surged like cold wind: the leader had gone mad.

Guards flanked Albus as well, tying his legs and untying his chest, and began to drag him away by the arms, but he couldn't tear his gaze away from the chaos. The room in disarray, the crime-lord was throwing a petulant fit at the mere _thought_ of being usurped.

Snapping from his mania, he fixed Albus with a look of ever-growing fury.

"You think you're special, Evans?" he gave a harsh barking laugh, the veins on his neck popping violently, as several of his men held him back. "You think you have what it takes to be me? Let me tell you a secret: He likes you because you're young, fresh— _the latest version._ But the story's the same, see? It _never_ changes. And if he wants me dead now, chances are that in a few years, he'll out you _too_."

.

Sitting in the cell, his body rattled with cold, thoughts racing to make sense of it all.

Magic fashioned in the way of muggle bombs. Anarchy. Apathy. _Secrecy_. The man no one knew anything about. The man who never showed himself, who was no more than a name, who hid in the midst of a legion of talented animagi out in frigid mountainlands.

And it was all because—because—

[you people]

[ _your_ ]

Graham Paisley was a _muggle_.

A muggle posing as a wizard, who despised wizards, who desired to divide the wizarding world, who was fascinated by magic, and who was in the possession of unfathomable magic—unfathomable _power_.

[but how?]

[ _think_ ]

Death

No… _Cygnus_.

Graham Paisley knew Cygnus, quite well, judging from his reaction. Cygnus must've been the one to give Graham Paisley magic, somehow, perhaps… _perhaps_ in the same way he had given Albus an arm. And _his_ _father_ had known Cygnus too, at some time, in the same realm or maybe a different one, and it was no coincidence that Cygnus had sought out Albus just as he was on the brink of dying, because Albus and his father were similar, just as Albus and Graham Paisley were similar.

 _Sent a little boy to replace me, did he?_

Just why did Cygnus want Graham Paisley dead?

 _You will keep what you kill._

Why did Cygnus want Albus to replace the crime-lord?

[slow down]

Why was Cygnus looking for his father?

[breathe]

If not dead, just how had his father managed to evade detection for so long?

[stop]

Did his father intend for all this to happen? For Albus to draw the attention of Cygnus? For Albus to _nearly_ die?

[ _stop_ ]

He closed his eyes, exhausted to be inside his head for so long, and drew a long breath.

"My, my. Look at you, green-eyes. All…defeated."

His eyes darted up: It was a woman. Outside the cell, she stood against one of the columns, her body arched back with a languid deliberateness. Her hair was a glistening black and her lips were painted red. Crow tattoos trailed down her lithe arms and legs. She was one of Graham Paisley's animagi stooges, and Albus only vaguely remembered her from elsewhere…

"It's Rachel," she said, exasperated at his prolonged silence. "We've met, what? At least _twice_ now."

"My apologies." He was busy fishing a stray fag from his pockets.

She smiled in a thin way. "It's all right. You've been preoccupied, haven't you? Barely survived the bombings at Little Norton after all." A mocking pout. "Poor baby."

He ignored this. "Want to do me a favor?"

Her eyebrows, sly as the slots of a violin, raised. She nodded and advanced towards him with a serpent's slowness, unhinging the cell door, then dropping to her knees in front of his body. Inches from him she halted, hands low upon her adorned thighs, elbows back and chest forward so that he had easy access up her blouse.

"Yes?" she mused, batting her eyelids demurely.

He nodded at the cigarette clasped between his lips.

She blinked, then gave an exasperated sigh, but nonetheless pulled her wand and lit it for him. He inhaled sharply, stretching out his legs in ease; pent-up tension drained from his body. His wand had been confiscated but he was too busy enjoying being away from the creature [ _Cygnus_ ] at the moment to be particularly worried. At last his mind, most valuable weapon, was his own once more; specks of scattered clues floated in his thoughts, which was enough, for he needed only an inch to weave a _mile_.

A muggle, masquerading as a wizard.

If true, then the erratic crime-lord was a far more interesting specimen than anyone could've possibly imagined. Worthy of further analysis.

Theory: Graham Paisley's power was connected to Cygnus's.

[rationalize it]

Albus didn't know exactly when the Ordine Corvis had emerged but had reason to believe it was shortly after Rose committed the resurrection. Why? No one had heard of them before.

 _The fire's always been there, brewing under the surface. All I had to do was stroke the flames a bit._

Although…maybe anarchist threads had always existed in the wizarding world, scattered, powerless.

So when and why did Graham Paisley emerge to unite them?

[build on what you know]

Rose must've been the catalyst. When she committed the resurrection, she crossed into the realm of the dead to pull her brother's soul back. In doing so, she had _torn_ her brother's soul and also inadvertently allowed space for _another fragmented_ _soul_ to cross over in its place…Cygnus. She had woken the ancient, resting creature —no—Cygnus had been trapped—she had set him _free_.

In all the chaos of Hugo's resurrection, the creature emerged with restored power and sought out a human malicious enough to wage the assured destruction of wizard society because…because…

Albus couldn't be sure. Vengeance, perhaps? What did Cygnus have to gain from dividing the wizarding world?

[store that query]

[focus on what you know]

Graham Paisley. He was easier to decipher. A no-one, something of a mercenary, whose only stake in this was his own life. An opportunist at best, with a brilliant if unhinged mind, who craved power, who knew how to read his surroundings.

When a mysterious creature emerged from the shadows to offer him power beyond his maddest dreams, he accepted. _Of_ _course_ he accepted.

He was clever too, of course, in the way any muggle would have to be to thrive in their world. He understood that loyalty was a fickle thing, and instead, sought the union of people who already shared common agendas. He united the several anarchist groups floating around, and began the meticulous work of crafting an empire.

[Just how was Graham Paisley doing magic?]

Smoke wafted in the chilly cell, leaving the window in soft curls, and he felt his head throb from too many questions and not enough sleep. He craved the muggle powders he'd once indulged in, having spent nearly two years in the place neither-here-nor-there with no access to any of them. In the background, faint sounds of flurrying snow and a female voice. He knew what Graham Paisley wanted from him – the secret to resisting the Cruciatis – and something like that couldn't be told; it had to be _taught_ —

"Earth to _Evans_."

He blinked, finding the animagi woman seated on top of his legs, looking annoyed with him. He didn't know how she'd gotten there [or why he hadn't shoved her away yet] but her eyes were dusky and her body lolled forward in tease, and there was no question to what she wanted.

[playing nice: advantageous.]

He was tired, but he cleared his throat, straightening up. "Why work for Graham Paisley?" he said, making idle conversation.

She began inching closer. "I like powerful men."

[terrible foreplay]

"Try again."

Rachel stopped inches from his face, tilting hers, genuinely considering now. "I like the money—and the status when you're high enough in his chain of command. We crows, we protect our own. I guess I like that too. Why, were you finally thinking of joining Graham?"

[burn him to death]

[chop off his limbs]

[jam his head between the menacing stone gates of his own fortress]

"Perhaps," was all he said.

"I hope he lets you." She eyed him with more interest now. "It won't be easy, you know. He's not the type to easily forgive…though I've seen him make exceptions sometimes. And I get the sense he rather likes you."

"Really? I get the sense you like me more."

She bit her lip, holding back a smile. "Maybe I do…" she teased.

Suppressing an eye-roll while simultaneously maintaining her playful gaze, he picked up her palm and pressed feathery kisses across the wrist. She flushed with pleasure.

"I would be careful with Graham, my dear. He's not safe to be around, usually, and he's got no qualms about killing…anyone really…you've seen what he's capable of: He doesn't destroy people, he destroys _cities_ … And he's nearly killed you in the process once."

"Thank you for the advice. I'll keep it in mind."

"I hope you do." She leaned in with a shrewd smile, draping her dark curtain of hair over his shoulder as she began to curl around him. "And it's not just the bombings, you know." Her mouth grazed his ear, breath warm. "There's so much you don't know yet, about those who run this world. Just how _elaborate_ their hunger is."

 _You will keep what you kill._

"Please." Five fingers tentatively wrapped the nape of her neck. "Tell me more."


	26. Rise pt 4

A moan rang out, knuckles clasping at his hair, gripping tightly.

"Your… arm, babe." Rachel's voice came out in ragged pants. "It's f-f- _freezing_."

"Sorry."

"N-no… it's… kinky."

Resisting an eye-roll, he unwrapped the prosthetic from her curved backside, and moved carefully and deliberately to replace it with his human arm. Legs clenched tighter around him now, and, in turn, he gave a teasing roll of the hips. _A yelp._ Head lolling back, eyes straining closed— her mouth fell open. He could read the barest of emotions on her face, in the thrumming of her pulse as his fingers squeezed her wrist.

Burying his face into her neck, he imprinted one deliberate kiss into her flesh, provoking, this time, _a sigh._

An understanding of the female body was all one needed. The machinations of it, otherwise, were easy to grasp. _If I do this, then that happens. If I touch her there, she'll respond by doing that._ Boring, repetitive.

Her pace sped up: she was finishing now but he need not waste time. Using her soft, hurried pants to lull his mind, he allowed himself to enter into a trance of deep thought: Like the act of fucking, like this entire interlude with Graham Paisley, there was no rhyme, no sense to the existence of a god-like Death and the elusive creature had dropped one glaring clue in their time together that had aroused suspicions over his presumed identity:

Cygnus didn't know _if_ his father was dead.

It was not a question of whereabouts. That may have been averted with the invisibility cloak.

No, it was a question of the state of being _itself_.

Whichever realm his father existed in, Cygnus did not know.

Cygnus was not Death.

[a fraud]

So then, who was he?

The creature had not tried to reach him or infiltrate his mind since he'd left for the highlands. Albus suspected this was because he couldn't.

[Theory: Graham Paisley had up barriers of some sort to prevent the creature from reaching him]

He'd had come to the fortress with intentions to kill the crime-lord, but it proved impossible to focus on one task when theories bombarded him from other angles. He felt furious at the idea of being someone's pawn and equally furious at not knowing which direction to proceed. _Why did Cygnus want him to kill Graham Paisley? Why had his father left him on his own? Had he intended Albus to get caught up in all this?_ There were too many threads for him to think linearly.

Although, he could sense that something _grand_ was underway, something he'd only tapped the surface of.

Rachel didn't leave after they finished. Lounging in his lap, head against his chest, she was at ease with herself. "Graham's got a temper," she told him, "Been getting madder and madder for years now. You shouldn't try to anger him, Evans. Befriend him. Get on his good side and you will be," she tilted her head up, facing him, and smirked, pecking his mouth, " _rewarded_."

Smoke wafted as fingers traced careful circles along her thighs. He was inclined back as well, in deep thought.

"How long have you worked for him?" he asked.

"I was a wee girl on my own." She was nuzzling against him now. "I was one of his earliest. He found me…on the streets…found most of us like that…saw what I could do and gave me something _to_ do…"

"He found you …" A pause. "Five, six years ago?"

[six years ago:]

[Rose Pose committed the resurrection]

[a fragmented piece of Cygnus's soul came into this realm]

[Graham Paisley began the careful work of crafting his empire]

Her head tilted in thought. "I wager it's been about six years now, yes," she agreed. "I didn't meet him directly at first. Not everyone gets to do that. There's a hierarchy… You don't move up until you've thoroughly proven yourself to him."

"Fascinating… And how did you thoroughly prove yourself?"

She gave a naughty smile, waggling her brows.

"I see," he said.

"A girl has to do what she has to do." She stretched her arms in a yawn. "The benefits are well worth it, I assure you. The pay's fantastic, the freedom to use magic as you please…My only complaint," She tilted her head back to kiss him, hard, "is that there aren't more boys who look like you," she muttered against his lips.

He allowed a moment or two before shifting away. "You must really hate the ministry, I suspect," he smirked, taking care to hold her gaze.

"Oh I don't particularly care for the politics of it." She leant further in to nibble at his ear now. "And neither should you, Evans. Graham only wants to know how you throw off pain from the Cruciatus. The sooner you tell him that, the better your life will be."

Albus pondered these words for a long, hard second.

"He's very interested by magic, the craft itself, isn't he?"

"Well sure, his type tend to be interested in everything. Riches and women and eternal glory, they want it all."

[wrong]

"Has he… always been this adept at magic?"

She drew up, busy drawing on her robes now, adjusting the waist. "I've never really paid attention," she said flippantly. "But I'm sure that he has."

[also wrong]

"The bombings—"

"Oh, you want to know about _that_ , don't you? Does it all by himself. It's his own personal brand of magic, I suppose. Doesn't talk about it with anyone…bit paranoid like that." She gave a sly side-eye. "Wouldn't want us to say the wrong thing when chatting up the prisoners."

Maintaining eye-contact, Albus leant forward. His hand slowly trailed up her leg, a tease. "And do you… often chat up his prisoners?"

She gave a quick grin in response – presumably, under the impression that she was being coy – before moving to leave, taking great pains to sway her hips as she walked away. After a moment, the sound of footsteps was gone.

His head lolled backwards, eyes squeezing shut. Smoke released in a long-held sigh of exasperation.

.

Ensuring the animagi woman's favor was draining.

She made many visits to his cell at night, always for the same thing, and while Albus was not shy in any physical way, it felt… hard to muster desire. Barriers propped to ensure that all it became was a mechanical exercise. He could feel nothing and what little he felt slipped from his thoughts like sand. It was aggravating, not being able to grasp what came so easily to others. A taunt, and in a private way that was never to be disclosed—a sign of impotency.

In moments of exertion he tried to think of Rose…with Scorpius. Tried to imagine what it must've have been like for them [it was certain to have happened: They had wanted each other since childhood and the sort of thing was inevitable]. What emerged as a result of this fantasizing was _unbearable_ —chest tightened, bile rose in his throat—and he was quick to shove the disturbing image away.

The animagi woman. After fucking him, in some deluded effort to impress him, she'd sit in his arms and chat at him about things.

Occasionally, there'd be a slip of something he could use.

Slowly, through careful conversations, he learned that Paisley was faltering, every bit as mad a man would have to be to cause this level of chaos. The Crows—ones that were close to him—knew of his deteriorating madness. They bore no special loyalty to him. He ruled because he was powerful, dangerous, and kept his methods to magic a secret.

Albus felt himself grow more agitated with each passing day, waiting in the cell. No doubt, further investigation was necessary. At the same time, the fingers of his wand-hand twitched [bad habit—a wide assortment of wandless hexes were available to him now] for a duel that was fast approaching. Anticipation swelled at the thought of tearing Graham Paisley's flesh and bone with masterful strokes of wandless magic. He'd been practicing violence for a long time now. He craved murder, lusted for it, you might say. And hate; he had more hate than he knew what to do with.

But he didn't forget about Cygnus.

 _He likes you because you're young, fresh—_ _ **the latest version.**_

 _If he wants me dead now, chances are that in a few years, he'll want you out_ _ **too**_ _._

.

At last, came the day Graham Paisley summoned him from the cell.

Hands shoved him roughly through the outer gates, into the blistering cold, chains rattling as guards dragged him by the arms up mountainous terrain. Trudging through thick sheets of snow, they approached the man, standing near a cliff, overlooking a grand view.

Chains around his legs vanished, along did the guards, and he was alone with the crime-lord. A cold wave of air brushed by, making trees rustle.

The man didn't turn around, didn't even move, though the dirtied fingernails at his side curled.

"Come here, Evans."

Albus wasted no time with niceties. "You're a muggle," he spoke, without preamble. "How are you performing magic?"

The blond head jolted around, furious eyebrow flitting to hairline.

"Come _here_ , Evans," he growled.

"Evans is a false alias. I'm the son of a well-known wizard of your generation who I bear a striking resemblance to and the fact that you haven't picked up on _who_ lends me to believe you haven't spent very long in the wizarding world at all," he said in one breath, quite coldly. "I'm a liar, just like you… see? Aside from our mutual acquaintance, we have another thing in common."

The scarred face contorted, whether from fear or intrigue, Albus couldn't be sure.

"Our mutual acquaintance," Paisley sneered, and trailed away from the white peak, towards the trees flanking the other side, peering into them. He turned back. "He can't hear us here. Are you aware of that?"

A pause.

A careful nod.

Paisley gave an unpleasant smile. "Let's have an honest talk then, shall we?" Without warning, the man slipped into the trees, waving an irritable hand behind for him to follow. "Honesty, not a thing that exists in this world anymore, is it?" The voice called, snide, scornful.

Albus said nothing, ensuring that he remained a few careful paces behind as he followed.

After minutes of trudging through snow: they arrived at the set up for a campfire. Paisley stopped, turned, casually tossing a small bag of white powder at him—he caught it with one hand. Then, the man collapsed against a log, splaying his arms out in ease.

"Peace offering," he explained, briskly. "For the next few hours."

Albus considered the pouch in his hands, dubious. "Poison?"

The crime-lord grinned, baring teeth. "In the muggle world, we call it cocaine."

.

Green eyes zipped over flakes with dizzying speed.

Feverishly counting under breath, his head bobbed with every third count. They fell shimmering Tiny White Fractals one two three Patterns Streamed Past His Eyes shimmering one two three Complex Algorithm three one two three—

A sharp inhale. Then exhale. And again.

With a quick jerk, he tore his gaze away from the distracting snow, forcing his overly-sharp attention at the man lounging on the end of the campfire. Paisley was staring into air as well. " _Jesus_ ," he sniffed, rubbing at his bloodshot eyes.

"Merlin," Albus corrected, sharp and far-too-abrupt.

Unsteady eyes, restless pacing, twitching hands, excited speech, violent shifts in mood—

[he had seen the signs]

[was having them]

Muggle powders. The crime-lord was an _addict_.

His gaze focusing onto the man, he noted that there was no wand in his hands. Tucked away in his robes perhaps. He looked far too relaxed, too assured. Albus, of course, didn't need his wand as nearly as badly anymore, certainly not to cast a single, well-calculated jet of green, resulting in the crime-lord's quick and sudden dea—

"Try anything and see what happens," the voice interjected his thoughts. "There are twenty wands pinned on you at any given moment, Evans. You kill me, you die with me…and Cygnus wins. Is that what you want?"

Jaw clenched. The fingers on his prosthetic curled, but he restrained himself, barely.

"What's the process of making cocaine like, compared to that of brewing a potion?" he asked, mildly, shifting subjects.

A faint chuckle. "Difficult…and not nearly as fun," the man sounded amused.

"Is that what you did before…" Albus probed further, letting the thought trail.

Paisley lifted his head, brows raised.

Another chuckle. "No, Evans. I wasn't involved in making drugs…just an enthusiast. Worked in a lab for a good portion of my life."

[scientist]

[inventor?]

"Did you make bombs?"

The question went ignored. "So what's your real name, Evans?"

Also ignored.

"I'll just call you Evans." the crime-lord said, after the stretch of a long pause, quite flippantly. "Makes no difference to me really. Onto more important things—do you intend to try to follow through with Cygus's instructions?"

"I wasn't aware I had instructions."

The man sat up. "Liar," he spat. "He sent you up here to kill me… take a stab at killing me at least.'" A wild grin flit wide. "So what's your trick then? What'd he give you to win you over? That's what he does, you know, tit for tat."

Stony silence.

"Oh, _all right._ I'll go first." Graham Paisley stood, shuffling over impatiently, and procured his wand from his robes, holding it out for him to see.

Albus stared at it, and then at him, skeptical. A fundamental misunderstanding of magic: it was in the wizard, not the _wand._ One had to be born with the ability.

"He crafted this himself, see? With it, I can wield magic as well as any of you." A smirk. "Better than you."

Albus scrutinized the wand once more. Oakwood, hastily constructed— by all accounts, uninteresting. Then, however, Hh spotted a green bit of something imbedded in the handgrip, the fragment of a very small piece of stone.

Paisley noticed him staring. "I didn't know what it was at first," he said. "I figured it out though. _He_ didn't think I would, but I did. I tracked it down and I found the whole damn stone…" Another wild grin. "Thinks I'm a fool, see? But I've seen this coming, seen it _all_ coming. And yes, oh yes, I've been preparing for it for a while."

Albus remained quiet, watching Paisley trail away, hands folded behind his back.

"I knew that eventually he'd decide he was done with me," he burst, suddenly, angry now, "The day someone like you showed up at my doorstep – young, cocky… prepared to usurp me."

 _You will keep what you kill._

"Is that what I'm here to do?"

"Isn't it?"

Albus inclined back, against the log, turning his attention back to the fractals in the air.

"You started it," he stated, icily. "Your Crows came after me first. Then you attacked my companions—you goaded me here with your stupid games."

At this simple taunt, fury etched across the crime-lord's face, plain and cold.

"I went you after you because you were _intriguing_ , Evans," he said. His tone was eerily pleasant, making the ferocity of his expression even more unnerving. "Of course, once you hurt my feelings by refusing my invitation… _I wanted to tear your throat off_ ," he ended with a harsh snarl.

Albus stared coldly in return.

He reverted back to his old tone of airy deceptiveness. "Did I guess _our mutual friend_ had taken an interest in you as well…well, I had an inkling… but I didn't think….I didn't think he'd send you after _me_." A pause. "I thought he'd give me more time before…It makes sense now, though…" His voice trailed, floating somewhere afar.

"What does?"

For a moment, Paisley looked quite pale. "Why he made me take a Vow not to kill you…"

[this was news]

"You did nearly kill me. At little Norton," he pointed out, eyes narrowing. "Explain that."

"The key word is _nearly."_

Albus glowered once more.

"It makes sense then." Paisley gave a cracking laugh. "Wouldn't let me kill you because— _because_ he wanted to get his hands on you before I did… _Ah yes, it all makes sense_." He paused, turned back to Albus, grinning madly. "I told you I know how to read a room, didn't I? Well, the room we are in is getting to be very, very crowded…" He cleared his throat, straightening up. "Someone will have to die, I suspect," his tone brisk now, "Let's think this through, shall we?'

Lifting his wand, he pointed it straight at Albus's chest.

In turn, Albus gave a dull look. The fingers of his prosthetic curled in anticipation.

"I could kill you right now," the man said pleasantly, "I'd probably die if I did it – because of the Vow – so that's lose-lose. Now, you could _try_ to kill me, and then I'd have no choice but to kill you. Again, we'd both die—"

[he seemed awfully confident that Albus couldn't kill him]

"—or, _or_ , we proceed with a third option," he continued, grinning, looking quite manic now. "Neither of us kill each other. We call stalemate, if, temporarily. Cygnus sees you as a pawn and thinks that I'm a fool, prepared to flop over and die at his command… he's always thought the least of me, compared to the others, the least brilliant—"

[the others]

[muggles?]

[no]

[wizards]

[ _his father?_ ]

"—but I've been one of the few who've known that it doesn't last. The power he grants you. I've been the only one to _prepare_."

Albus was quiet then, taking this all in.

"How?" he said, at last.

.

.

.

Painted fingernails gripped the end of her desk, drawing her gaze.

Cynthia.

"There's a man-boy by the elevators, says he's looking for you…he's dressed a bit silly," the Spanish auror informed, eyes dancing with silent laughter. "Roderick's taking the mickey out of him."

Rose glanced over at a lanky figure in his tweed jacket, chatting at the large, muscular auror, who was nodding along mockingly. She watched in dismay as Roderick pretended to stumble and knock over the stack of papers the Unspeakable had been holding. Lorcan went red-faced, flustered, scouring to gather them.

"Oh god," she muttered.

Cynthia giggled, "Friend of yours?"

"More like a child I've accidentally adopted."

Kovy's head poked alongside her cubicle at the inopportune time. "Didn't know you were a mother, Weasley," he deadpanned. "Not sure if our relationship can survive this twist."

Kovy'd been in a more humorous mood since what had happened at Christmas at the Head's manor, clearly compensating for any potential awkwardness that might've arisen from unsuccessfully trying it on with your co-worker: It was best to joke about fake feelings to dispel any ugly residue of real ones.

"Best break up with me now," she tried to joke back.

"Sure." He smiled weakly. "We can still get each other coffee though, right?"

"Of course."

"Priorities," Cynthia muttered, drawing half-hearted chuckles from them, and fixed Kovy with an exasperated look. "Speaking of which, Gachevska, where are the briefs I needed an hour ago? I'm not staying off-the-clock because of your lazyarse _again_."

"Oh shit." His head ducked out of sight.

Cynthia turned back to her, drumming her fingers against the desk for an irritable moment. "I better get back to my desk too," she sighed. "Hummel's been up my high end about finishing all the authorizations for the highlands mission by tonight. Can you believe that they're sending _people_ up to that cesspool? I—never mind, don't answer that. It's absolute _chaos_."

"Yeah, I read the reports…sounds awful," Rose muttered.

There were rumors of Paisley's fortress persisting in nearby mountainlands by the Loch Ness—as a result, the entire area was in panic. Wizarding riots alongside a forming giant revolt. Freezing weather; no place to lodge, and a good chance of another magical bombing; Aurors would have to move fast and swift to upend the crime-lord and dismantle the threat of attack. Rose didn't mention that she'd thrown her name to the Head for consideration to go.

"I wager that nutty Frenchman probably signed up for it," Kovy called from his cubicle, just loud enough for the aforementioned auror to hear. " _Just_ to get away from me."

Florian, without looking up from his briefs, sent a thumbs up.

"Let's grab lunch later," Rose said to Cynthia, changing the subject, reclining in her chair.

"Sounds good. Now go save your kid before Roderick has too much fun. Or worse, _the Head_ sees him."

Made duly aware of this horrible possibility, she jerked to her feet. Lorcan seemed like the sort who'd probably been bullied in school too, and been just as oblivious to it. Though she couldn't be sure what, something about this rubbed her the wrong way.

Noticing her come over, Roderick sniggered, "Oi Weasley, get a load of this clow—"

"Funny. I doubt _Unspeakable_ Scamander has time for your jokes though," she interjected.

The auror's eyes bulged. Unspeakables outranked their ilk by a margin, and while you'd never be able to tell by looking at him, Lorcan was the smartest wizard in the room. And most other rooms.

Lorcan was returning to his feet now, still flustered, glasses sitting crooked on his face. "No need to worry, Rose, it was only an acciden—"

She shot him a halting look, before turning back to the guilty-looking Roderick.

"Since you seem to have more free time than most, do something for me," she said, with obvious venom. "Pull all of Gachevska's reports from this month and fix any foreign words. He has a habit of slipping into Bulgarian when he's tired."

"What? But that arsehole's always tired!"

"Your point?"

Roderick looked like he'd swallowed a lemon. "Sure thing, Weasley," he muttered. "Erm, should I bring them over when I'm done?"

"Just put them on my desk," she said coolly.

With a nod, he sulked away, grumbling to himself. She grabbed Lorcan by the arm and dragged him into the nearest closet.

"What are you doing here?" she muttered, straightening his glasses for him. "And _honestly_ —can't you tell when someone's being an arsehole to you?"

Lorcan flushed. "Apparently not," he said. "He was being an arsehole to me?"

She opened her mouth, then decided against it. "So what's so urgent that it couldn't wait until tonight?" she sighed.

"Right. That." He pulled a journal from his large pocket. "I've had a compelling breakthrough about how you can cross the threshold aga– are you alright, Rose? You look crabbier than usual. Did you sleep well last night?"

She gave an impatient stare, nodding at him to continue.

"Right," he said quickly, flipping through his little book. "My breakthrough can be summarily described in one word: blood."

Her mouth etched. "Blood?"

"I've been working on a design for a potion that will allow you to safely cross the Veil. Because Hugo's missing a piece of his soul and not, erm, technically fully alive, I suspect he can comfortably exist in both realms. We just need to harness the property from his body. Blood is densely concentrated in organic soul material. It is, after all, the essence of life…though now that I think about it, urine may work too."

"Will I have to drink this?"

"Yes."

Rose blanched. "Let's use blood."

Lorcan nodded intently, snapping his notebook shut. "I'll get right to work." And made to leave.

Sure enough the idea was compelling, so much that she had trouble focusing on anything else for the rest of the day and scribbled potion designs on a spare bit of parchment under her desk. They were rusty— understandable given how long it'd been since she'd dabbled in potions… she'd missed doing interesting things with magic—

A hand, out of nowhere, smacked her shoulder. She jerked backwards.

Cynthia stood beside her desk again, glowering this time. "Explain why your name's on this." She held out parchment with a list of twenty-two aurors: the authorizations for the highlands mission she'd been working on. The name 'ROSE' was at the very top, with the words 'LEAD OFFICER' alongside it in the Head's blocky handwriting.

She stared, dumbstruck.

.

"Holy shit," awed the set of voices. Kovy and Florian, their faces stony.

"It has to be a publicity stunt," Florian reasoned. "No offense—but you're _really_ not qualified to lead something like this."

"I know." Her heart sank. What was the Head thinking?

"The Head said you requested the mission." Cynthia angrily dangled the parchment up in her face. "Have you gone mad? Are things not terrible enough for you here?"

"Florian's going too," she mumbled.

"Oh please, Dubois _lives_ for this sort of grand adventure thing. He's the only one here who actually enjoys his job."

"That's true," the aforementioned auror chimed. "But I know the stakes: if we find Graham Paisley's fortress, there's a good chance things'll get ugly fast…even I'm not mental enough to want responsibility for a bloodbath."

"Hey! I didn't _ask_ to be made lead—"

"Oh _don't_ change the subject." Cynthia was livid now, hands on her hips. "What are you thinking? Why would you leave London?"

Rose blinked. "Calm down a bit," she snapped back, "It's my life. Why are you getting so worked up?"

Cynthia opened her mouth to say something, but stopped short. With an outraged huff, she stormed away.

Florian gave a low whistle as Rose slumped back in her chair, regretful. "Shouldn't have said that," he said. "You're the closest thing she has to a girl friend here. Say you die up in the highlands. Say everything goes wrong and this blockade never ends. Who else has she got in this godforsaken country?"

Guilt jabbed at her chest like knives. "Oh," was all she could mutter.

Florian just shrugged, whistling to himself without a care in the world, as he strolled back to his desk. She looked confusedly over at Kovy, who hadn't said anything yet.

He came over to lean by her desk, folding his arms. "Do you remember, when your brother got taken, I told you to sit tight and wait it out?" he spoke, finally. "You didn't listen to me, and then you got caught up in that whole mess…you nearly died."

Her stomach clenched. "They had Hugo," she whispered. "I had to."

"But your brother's _safe_ now…" A pause. "What are you trying to prove?"

She winced. "Nothing." And spun away from him. "I just want this goddamn blockade to end. If Graham Paisley dies, then it will. I want to help you get home, you and Cynthia and… all of you. I know you're miserable here. Oh I'm so, so sorry, Kovy, I—"

A hand grabbed her chair, spinning her back around to face him.

"Rose," he said, with the most intent expression she'd seen on him. "My going home…that's not on _you_."

A miserable pause.

He stared. "Is this why you turned me down that night?" He gave a disbelieving laugh. "Cause you've got to save me instead?"

Having it said like that: it sounded so silly to her ears. She felt her shoulders deflate.

Kovy was quiet then, reading her over. "So does that mean…do you still fancy me then?"

She shifted her gaze away. The truth was that it wouldn't matter even if she did. The _tick-tick-tick_ inside her skin would remain, and the _guilt_ …

"I don't feel good," was all she could say.

Kovy frowned. "I'd make you feel good. I'd make you feel _very_ , _very_ good," he insisted.

She just shook her head. "Nothing feels good— it hasn't for a long time now, and I've just been ignoring it because I thought that it was…an old friend…but maybe it's just me, I think. There's just _so much noise_ in my head and I've just got to…" She looked up, desperately, hoping that he might understand without taking grave offense. "I've got to go up there. I've got to make everything alright. I know it sounds mad, but I'll kill Graham Paisley if that's what it takes."

Forehead creased, he watched her for a careful, almost-fragile moment.

"I see," was all he said.

Then he left.

.

Later that day, she found out that both he and Cynthia had put their names down.

They were coming with her.

.

A syringe, levelled with blood Lorcan had somehow managed to produce from Hugo's arm without too much of a hassle, sat beside him as he added a few drops into a simmering cauldron. Rose had just finished chopping some gillyroot, and was simultaneously flipping through the many texts she had splayed out, looking for some guidance – they'd managed to produce a viable set of designs, but what became tricky was once you realized several trial-and-error runs would have to be done to _refine_ the potion.

In her searching, she stumbled upon an old copy of Beedle and the Bard, and stared.

A thought surfaced.

"When I crossed….there was something. A man. He was just floating there, and I think when I broke through….I woke him."

Lorcan stopped scribbling in his notebook, and looked up. "You woke something?" he said. "On the other side? _Yeesh_."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. I signed up for this, didn't I?" He leant in, face screwed in thought. "Alright, I'm ready," he said, "hit me with everything you remember."

"I don't remember anything in particular, really," she said quietly. "Only that he looked strange, like…someone that you might have seen once, but no one you can really pinpoint. Does that make sense?" Lorcan shook his head. She gave a nervous laugh. "Oh! I do remember his hands though… they were like talons."

His brow raised, amused. "Like a bird?"

"I suppose."

"Like a birdy bird. Like a birdman?"

"I don't know, Lorcan," she said, annoyed now.

"Like a crow?"

A sinking pause stretched through the room.

"Forget it," she grumbled, turning back to her research.

"No! Hold on, give me a sec." He swept over, grabbing the copy of Beedle and Bard from her. "Maybe this is more theology than magic," he said, a bit sheepish, "but there are those that believe Death itself is an ancient god. A creature who resides over the world, governs the realms of living and dead…paves the way for the passing of souls…from whom no one can escape. Of course those that try to bypass death – like yourself – are punished severely. Prewitt was only able to evade him with the invisibility cloak, but I think even he surrendered in the end."

She sat there, brow scrunched in thought. "I don't like the idea of that sort of god," she said, flatly.

"Neither do I."

"Death isn't sentient."

"I completely agree." Lorcan nodded. "Which begs the question: just _who_ is the man you woke?"

.

.

Death was a fraud, an ancient wizard, masquerading as a god.

[perhaps a dark lord of another era?]

A wizard, who at one point, had found the secret to immortality. Managed to transcend his human form. Bested Voldemort, Grindelwald, and those like them, long before they had any conception of what immortality even was.

[what did he want?]

.

.

She stood a few paces from the Veil, observing, while Lorcan was tinkering away at an apparatus that, for some reason, involved two thousand meters of rope. He poked his head through the metallic fort that he was busy binding to a grand stone pillar in the room. "Do you know," he said, blinking owlishly at her, "that I named my kneazle in honor of you?"

"Oh really?" She felt…well, oddly flattered. "That's very—"

"Grumpy! Grumpy, come here!" he called down the hall, before pausing to look over at her. "What?"

"Nothing," she groused.

Sure enough, a small, ginger, miserable-looking animal trailed into the room. He picked the kneazle up and held it out for keen inspection, squinting at it, then yanked up a bit of rope and clasped the metallic end to its collar. She stared. "What're you—"

"Just wait." He pulled out a vial of potion. With careful fingers, he held Grumpy's mouth open and poured in a few drops; the kneazle mewled and hissed as the liquid sizzled in her mouth, and Rose held back a wince. "Now watch." He set Grumpy down and allowed the animal to trail towards the Veil.

She stared as Grumpy pawed at the flickering curtain in morbid curiosity.

A blaze of light flickered. The kneazle slipped in.

Her heart sank.

Rope spun into the Veil with startling acceleration. "Pull her back, pull her back now!" she said urgently, dashing towards the apparatus to stop it. This was cruel; nearly Albus-levels of _cruel_.

Lorcan scurried after her. "Relax, if she survives this, then we know the potion wor—"

"I don't care; just pull her _back_." Without another thought, she grasped the rope other end of the room, yanking as hard as she could; The colors of the Veil distorted, grew darker. Light flickered violently in the open curtain as rope fed through, burned against her grip—the kneazle was falling _into_ something.

A yelp escaped her mouth, as she was yanked forward along with the rope, across stone floor and down the stairway, the voices from the flickering curtain growing louder, more tempting. _RoseroseRoseroseRoseroseROSE_ Another from behind: "Rose, _don't_ —"

Letting go of the ropes, she pulled her wand instead.

 _"Carpe Retractum!"_ she snapped, the orange light of the spell shooting and grabbing onto bit that hadn't fed through yet.

She levelled her stance, grit her teeth—and _pulled_.

Lightning flashed in the murky swirling of the Veil.

Rope began winding backwards. Grumpy's body flew out, blood splattering across stone. Dead.

Her heart raced inside her chest as she stared at the carcass. She could find no words.

"It didn't work," Lorcan said somberly.

.

They worked in silence for the rest of the night in Lorcan's office, heads screwed in diligent concentration, trying to sort out what had gone wrong with the potion.

"So," she said, after a bit. "I'm heading to the highlands next week."

"Yes, I remember reading it in the papers," Lorcan said, bespectacled-eyes focused intently on his notes. "You're quite the headline maker, aren't you?"

Her mouth felt dry.

"I wanted to ask…while I'm gone, if Hugo could stay with you? I can't take him… for obvious reasons."

"I don't mind." His hand darted across paper, scribbling in notes. "I have my brother's spare bedroom. Not sure that Hugo likes me very much, however."

She stared down at her own scarred hands, from the ropes, brow tightening. Hugo was immature, no doubt about it, and idolized the wrong sort, and did not realize that for all the 'cool' James Bonds with all their charming gimmicks, it was the people who helped you through the thick of it who mattered most.

"Also…listen—on the off chance that something goes wrong up there…well, I just need to know–"

"Rose."

She looked up to meet Lorcan's kind eyes.

"Hugo can stay with me as long as he likes," he assured her, "Not that he'll need to, I'm sure. I have the utmost faith in the Ressurectionist."

Her stomach plummeted. "Please don't call me the—"

"But on the _very_ _miniscule_ chance something goes wrong," he continued. "Hugo's safe with me. And this investigation _will_ continue. Whether or not you're around, I _will_ repair your brother's soul."

It was the kindest cruel words anyone could've said to her.

She nodded, feeling dizzy with emotion, and dashed to give him a quick hug that invariably ended up being awkward, because he didn't know what do with his skinny arms and his coat smelt of something terrible. "Thanks," she said, pulling away.

"For what?" he replied, blinking.

.

 _._

 _Weasel,_

 _Hey. It's been a while. Not sure why I didn't write before, probably because I've got literally nothing of value to say, except that I ran into James the other day. That went as awful as you'd expect. Small world, yeah? I swear I was going to start this letter with a joke but then I couldn't think of anything good, and I guess I didn't want to wait until I did…not sure where I'm going with this. For what it's worth, I miss you. You're in the headlines pretty often these days, and, well, it's hard to keep my head clear._

 _So I read something outrageous in the papers this morning. Are you really heading up to the highlands?_

 _-S.M_

 _._

 _You're not replying. Are you mad? I can't tell if you're mad at me._

 _-S.M_

 _._

 _I don't blame you if you're mad. I left you and Hugo high and dry, didn't I? I got scared and copped the fuck out, because I'm soft. Because I'm a coward who doesn't know how to deal with his best mate's death and stick by the girl he might potentially love._

 _-S.M_

.

 _You're still not replying. I've now told you that I love you twice._

 _-S.M_

 _._

 _Are you heading up to the highlands?_

 _-S.M_

.

 _Are these messages even sending? Don't tell me I'm getting intercepted by fascists._

 _-S.M_

.

 _That was a joke, in my last letter, I swear. Although, I mean, your boss IS a fascist._

 _But seriously, don't go to the highlands, Weasel. It's all over the news how it's shaping up to be a bloodbath over there. The fighting's out of control._

 _-S.M_

 _._

 _Please, please don't go up there. Despite being an absent and terrible friend, I promise that I am interested in your continued existence._

 _If not me, think about Hugo. He needs his sister, right?_

 _Don't do this._

 _-S.M_

 _._

 _Goddammit Weasel._

 _-S.M_

.

.

The December before her twelfth birthday.

It was the vaguest memory she had of ever being up in the highlands, near the Loch Ness, the place Graham Paisley was now rumored to be hiding. Their families had stayed in a hotel in Fort Augustus, a settlement at the south west end. Uncle Harry had auror work in the area and because Aunt Ginny and Mum and Dad were off in the holidays, so they'd decided to make a family trip of it. Dad had said Uncle Harry _wasn't allowed to spend any more Christmases alone._

Al's mum and her parents went shopping in the tourist markets that day, taking with them the wailing Lily and sleepy Hugo. And because Ted had come along, James had tagged along with him to go check out the site of the spring where McSpratts Sparkling Spring Spell Water was bottled (She suspected this was a lie. It was winter, which meant the spring had frozen over which probably meant Teddy had taken James to a pub).

This left the afternoon free of adult supervision and clear for adventuring.

"Can we jus—"

"No."

Rose huffed at her cousin's rude dismissal. Wrapping her scarp tighter around her, she licked her dry lips, and tried again. "But it's getting dark, and it's _cold_ —"

"No."

"We'll be late for dinner! Think about how mad my mum and dad, and _your_ mum—"

A snowball smacked her face; snow dripped from her lashes to reveal a smirk on his face.

She grabbed a mound of snow and trudged forward. "You jerk!"

Chuckling, Albus held up an arm to block her flurry of attacks. Bundled thickly in an old tartan coat, she ran headfirst into him pitching him into the snow. He hooked an arm around her and flipped so she fell down under him. "You're horrible," she coughed from the impact of the fall and cold air in her lungs.

He landed a sloppy kiss between her eyes. "Horrible," he agreed, quietly. Then he was up again, running, his shoes kicking up snow in his wake. Grunting, she lifted and took off after him.

"Gross, you spit at me!"

"No I didn't!"

They ran over frozen landscape, yelling and throwing snowballs, accompanied by the scurrying fair-weather clouds and the icy whiplash of wind. Traversing right off a small ridge crest, they climbed a short snow gully. Then: a large daunting step up onto a steep wall, with no guarantee of easier climbing above.

Her heart fluttered.

"Almost there." Albus wasted no time in making the ambitious leap forward. Pulling himself aboard with a grunt, he turned and extended a gloved hand out to her, looking at her expectedly. Rose clasped it with both of her mitted ones, relishing the warmth. As he pulled her up, he collapsed backwards from the impact of her weight, snow sprinkling him from overhead rock. He scooted so he was propped against rock, finally exhausted. She sat down beside him, her short breaths coming out in puffs of cold air.

"There." He gestured upwards, at a faint opening between rocks.

"That's where he went."

Fear crawled up her throat. "I thought your dad was on a business trip?"

He ignored her question, dusting snow off his trousers as he stood up. He gave an impatient side-glance. "Are you coming or not?"

"It's getting late, Al. I mean we had…fun." Her teeth chattered. "Let's just go back now."

His features grew hard. "You go back then."

"Not without you."

She stood up and stepped in front of him, arms folded, skin tinged pink from the piercing cold.

He eyed her as if he was sizing her up, trying to decide if it was the effort. "I don't care if you come with me." He pushed her aside – _hey_!– with one forceful shove. Landing on her bum, cold wetness bled through her clothes into her flesh, and she shivered. She twisted her neck and watched his silhouette trudge through the snow towards the hollow. Her face crumpled.

There was a howl of wind and sounds of the snowstorm picked up, white flurrying across her vision. Shoulders slumped, cold nipping at her red nose, she got up and ran after him into the dark cave.

"Wait up!"

He'd never let her live it down otherwise.

Small, imbedded stones littered the snow as they got closer to the dark mouth of the cavern. It was built within the powdery opening of a cliff, the stone guarding the entrance jagged and uneven. As they stepped inside, Albus procured his wand and shone a beam of light that was lost in the blackness of the air. She gave a squeak and he immediately threw her a sharp look. One hand stuck out and she grabbed it tightly in her mitted one, following him as he moved carefully, navigating them into the cavern by following the damp wall with his other hand. She did the same. All of a sudden, her hand passed over a strange textured rock and flaming torches sparked to life, lighting up the tunnel ahead and bathing the entire cavern in a flickering orange glow.

Ivory walls sprung to life, the stone incandescent and shimmering with dozens of little projections of them. Rose stared in awe, unable to tear their gaze away from their shadows that felt ethereal and nearly hypnotizing; it was like being in a funhouse mirror maze. A quick glance to her right confirmed that Albus was equally perplexed by the effect.

As he leant forward slowly to touch one of the ivory stones, there was a pitter-patter of footsteps. They exchanged a terse look.

"Quick, this way!" she whispered fiercely, pulling on his hand, and they both took off running down the tunnel until they came across a pile of boulders they could both easily fold behind, a small space against the wall. They slipped inside, listening as the sounds grew nearer and nearer. Eyes squeezed, heads buried in their laps, they waited for the rustle of footsteps to pass.

"What are you two doing here?!"

The sudden voice jerked them from their laps and they looked up.

It was Uncle Harry, wand gripped in his fist, figure shadowed by torchlight. The heaving and snowsuit made his figure look larger and more distorted than he really was. Fear clenched in her stomach.

As he stepped closer, the menacing aura cleared up, and she realized he was just sweaty and exhausted.

"We were exploring," she murmured feebly. To her side, Albus stayed mum.

To her surprise Uncle Harry's eyes passed over entirely. He stared at Albus with such intensity she was certain he must've been angry. The boy glowered into the floor, not an ounce of regret on his face. No words were exchanged.

The staring went on for another moment or so, before Uncle Harry finally turned to her. His expression lightened.

"You look cold, Rose Pose."

His good spirits dissolved her fear. She finally let loose the sneeze she'd been holding in and her uncle chuckled. "I'm _freezing_ ," she whined. "Al dragged me out all the way out here because he wanted to explore."

From the corner of her eye, she saw her cousin's face flare. But Uncle Harry didn't say anything. He reached over and pulled her to him, squeezing her in a one armed hug. "Brrr, you're freezing!" he said, rubbing her shoulder. "Should we head home and get some hot chocolate?" She nodded eagerly and he chuckled again.

"Come along." He nodded once at his son, who stood staring determinedly at the wall.

As they made their way out of the cave, Albus trailed a few paces behind them.

It was awkward.

.

"I've been there before," Albus muttered.

"What?"

"The cavern. He took me there before, when I was very little. That's how I remembered how to find it."

They were back at the rental property, sipping hot chocolate by the fireplace. Uncle Harry was out of sight, having disappeared into his office to answer some mail. He'd left with a curt, "Meet me in my office when you've finished, Albus."

It was then, maybe, that Rose came to realize how differently Uncle Harry treated Albus. Like an adult, almost. Father never yelled at son. Son never openly disrespected his father. There was no coddling, or affectionate joking between the pair, only a cold silence which indicated that they were upset with each other.

Then again, Mum had always said that Uncle Harry _detested_ talking about his feelings.

She imagined Albus was tenfold worse.

Though even when Uncle Harry was giving her his full attention, it was easy to feel like an outsider being in the same room as the pair. They communicated in silent ways, reveling in their secrecy. They seemed to exist in a space that made sense to no one else but them, and it was clear that was how they preferred it.

Uncle Harry was not a yeller; that much was certain. When Albus disappeared into his office, Rose tried to listen in from outside but could hardly make out _anything_ except Uncle Harry distinctly use the word 'impatient' – and the room became frighteningly silent for a long time.

Dinner was an awkward ordeal as well. Her cousin did not speak much and avoided everyone's gaze throughout, while Uncle Harry behaved like a subdued version of his usual self, hardly making conversation or laughed at Dad's jokes.

Then later that night, there were two knocks against her door, followed by a "Can I come in?"

Uncle Harry.

She quickly sat up as he entered. "I hope I didn't wake you," he said. "I wanted to talk a little bit about what happened today."

"I'm sorry, we won't do it again, promise!" she chirped.

Uncle Harry blinked, then laughed. "It's all right. I'm not mad….but I am a little concerned that you thought it was a good idea to go wandering out by yourself like that."

"It was Al's idea."

"Oh I don't doubt that." He sat down on the edge of her bed, playing with the hem of her sheets. "Look, Rose, it doesn't matter to me whose idea it was. What bothers me is that you went along with something you knew was wrong and dangerous. I imagine you've got your parents' combined stubbornness… why didn't you make use of it?"

She flushed. "I told him to stop!" she insisted fiercely. "I fought him, Uncle Harry, trust me. He wouldn't _listen_. He's so _stubborn_."

Rose wished he would just yell at her like Dad, get it over with it, but all he gave was a maddeningly patient blink. He scooted close and put an arm around her shoulder; comforting, fatherly, except that this was not what fathers did when they were mad at you.

"Say, have your parents ever told you anything about our schooldays?"

"You're world famous, Uncle Harry. You've got books written about you. Everyone knows everything there is to know about your schooldays."

He gave something between a scoff and chuckle. "All right, smarty pants. Then I'm sure you know that your parents and I weren't exactly _model students_ either. Well— save for your mum, but _only_ in the beginning."

"Mum says you were a broody teenager."

"Does she?" Uncle Harry's eyes shone with mischief. "Then I hope she won't mind me saying she was very uptight."

"She won't mind. Dad calls her that all the time."

Uncle Harry chuckled, and Rose felt a swell of pride at being able to make her uncle laugh.

"Anyway – my point. My point is that your parents are fantastic, amazing friends. They're better than anything I could've hoped for as a kid, and anything better than what I deserve now. If it wasn't for them, I would've died _countless_ _times_. I wish I could say that's an exaggeration."

Uncle Harry grabbed her alarm clock from the side table and began messing with it. "You see, Rose, even the best friendships come with a set of responsibilities. We've always made sure to look out for each other. It's—what I'm trying to say with all this, is that I know the sort of kid Albus is, and more importantly, the sort he _can_ _be_."

She stayed mum.

Uncle Harry set the clock down, and it was in the dim lighting she noticed how exhausted he looked. But then, he had always had bags under his eyes, so she couldn't really imagine a time where he _didn't_ look exhausted.

"It's…hard to talk to Albus," he said. "Not that it's ever been easy, mind you. I think it's because he's growing up too fast. It's my own fault. I'm proud of how clever he is, don't get me wrong; he's everything I could've possibly hoped for…but it isn't always easy to father a boy like him."

Despite the vagueness of the conversation, Rose had a faint idea what her uncle might've meant.

"It's not always easy to be his friend either," she said quietly.

He looked at her, taking her in, and his eyes crinkled with a smile. "I know," he said, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "You're a wonderful girl. And someday he'll realize what a valuable friend he has in you."

The words were touching, but also uncomfortable in a way she couldn't place. They were not the words you said to your niece. She could sense something was wrong as her uncle stood up, pacing across her room as if turning something over in his head. Lost in his thoughts.

He stopped after a moment, a strange crinkle between his brows.

"I know that, sometimes….it can feel like you don't have any choice, when it comes to being dragged on these adventures. No one knows how that feels better than me." He fidgeted around for a bit. "I guess, what I want you to know is that it's going to be ok." He looked at her. "No matter what happens. If you've got the nerve…" A nod. "You find a way to do what's right."

Perplexed by the strange speech, she blinked, watching as he made to leave.

"Uncle Harry," she said softly. "Just what were you doing in that cave today?"

The man gave a tired smile.

"Good night, Rose." The crack of light from the hallway disappeared as the door closed.

And that was that.

.

.

For all intents and purposes, the Ressurectionist was a government commodity. A scapegoat, a hero, a martyr—a _Harry Potter_ —manufactured in the harsh reality of a country on the brink of civil war.

Making her Lead Officer was a publicity stunt; it _had_ to be. Why had she been chosen to lead a team of twenty-four aurors into the very heart of the Ordine Corvis, tear open arteries and bleed out the disease which plagued England? Why?

Because the whole world was watching, foreign governments, the ICW. Because the future Minister of Magic had _everything_ to prove.

 _"Twenty-four," he had told her. "Do you understand, Weasley, what I am saying to you?_ _ **Twenty-four**_ _."_

 _"I understand sir." She'd nodded. "Twenty-four."_

 _"That's the number of men and woman I'm sending with you. That's the number I expect to see with you when you return."_

 _"Yes sir."_

 _"I've been extremely accommodating of all your needs, haven't I? I've given you plenty of opportunities to learn from your mistakes, use them to grow…_

 _He'd turned away then, a moment passing in terse silence. She'd swallowed her racing heart._

 _"This can't be a mistake," the voice came out quiet, foreboding. "Everyone's watching this one."_

Masses upon masses of wizards crowded the fairgrounds. Her stupid face plastered large screens over the stands, as she stood at center with other aurors. Reporters lined the front lines like artillery, quills frantically waving in air, vying for attention.

 _Rose Weasley!_ Over here! _What's your plan?!_ Ressurectionist!

But she couldn't hear them. Her heart hammered inside her ribcage as Hugo's arms circled her, his head buried against her body. "Come back soon," his voice came out muffled, and she clung back as tight as she could; the love she held for him was more than any love she held for anyone in the world; sometimes it frightened even her when she thought of what she was willing to do to keep him alive.

And the truth was, that for the longest time, there'd been little else in her life: In the midst of all the deaths and abandonments, and all the painful love crammed inside her chest, stored in hopes of someday salvaging an unsalvageable family, while she'd been left alone to wage battle with the darkest parts of her mind, Hugo'd been the only enduring thing—he still was.

But she could no longer use him as an excuse.

He was first to let go, not her. With one last squeeze he shuffled back, next to Lorcan, who nodded at her in reassurance.

Cynthia grabbed her arm, jolting her from her tear-stained staring and dragging her away, into the tents.

Moments later everyone was changing.

"God I hope I get eaten by the Loch ness monster," Kovy grumbled, drawing on a thick woolen coat. "I wager that's the best way to die in this scenario."

"For once in your life, Yaakov, just _once_ , can you not complain?" Cynthia pulled her trousers over grey leg warmers. "And you're not funny either."

"Let him whine. He needs to get it out of his system," Florian said irritably, the first to finish. He waited with hands in pockets, balancing on the balls of his feet.

Tensions were high and everyone on edge. Rose kept peeking out the tent opening, an ugly feeling in her stomach: the faint silhouette of her brother and Lorcan had nearly disappeared, into the setting sun, the purpling horizon. Crowds waned and a soft snowfall had begun.

(There was little, so little time left to be alive)

She turned back to her comrades. "The Loch ness monster doesn't exist," she said.

"Oh yes, it _does_ ," Florian piped. "And there's a good chance we'll encounter it…should it eat Gachevska, I am prepared to document the entire thing."

"Hope you die too, French," Kovy muttered.

Cynthia clicked on her belt. "Oi!" she snapped. "No one's _dying_. Can we all be civil with each other? Please? Try to be more level-headed…like Rose."

"Rose has at least one good cry every morning," Rose deadpanned, and everyone gave a half-hearted chuckle, though it wasn't exactly a lie. "Rose is the opposite of level-headed… It's wiser to be like Cynthia."

The girl sent her a weary smile.

Florian tapped at his watch, "Let's—" He stopped short, seeing her expression. "Erm, let's give the Lead Officer a minute."

Aurors lifted to their feet, scouring out, no one making eye-contact with her. The last one to leave, Kovy gave her shoulder a quick squeeze. "Just come out when you're ready," he said. "No worries."

Frozen on the bench, knuckles clenched and unclenched at her sides.

.

.

.

The night was black, an inky void.

The sky, speckled with spots of silver, held a particular nakedness that it did not have in London. They flew through clouds of frigid air, shivering in tightly-bundled snowsuits, as the mountainous terrain of the Highlands slowly became visible, the world below enveloped in thick white. A never-ending span of blank, silken ice, glittering under the moon's mournful gaze.

At last: flickering lights. _Movement_.

"There it is!" came a shout.

In the parish of Boleskin and Abertarraf: the largest wizarding settlement in all of Scotland.

She shifted her broom to an incline down, picking up speed. In one synchronized movement, aurors followed suit. Sharp wind attacked her face and cold bit into her bones; she tried hard to keep her eyes open, focusing on the blurry dots closely congregated together, watching as they became recognizable as small houses, buildings, and other edifices. Something was happening. Noise floated in the air, growing as they neared, shouting and yelling.

As terrible as it sounded, she was privately glad that there were riots. Upheaval meant that people knew their lives were in danger, unlike those of Little Norton, who'd been oblivious until the bitter end. Now, it was just a matter of evacuating them. Graham Paisley's fortress was in the mountains nearby, shrouded in secrecy; the crime-lord held _unimaginable_ power; she knew from experience he could destroy the whole settlement on a whim.

Eyes remained focused in front on the approaching town, body traversing fierce air, but in her periphery she picked a speck of color in the blackness of the night. It was faint, growing brighter, drawing nearer; a beam of light.

Realization dawned.

 _Crows_

"MOVE!" she screamed, violently swerving to dodge the blazing hex. Brooms jerked away on command, coming to stand-still, the stony faces of her comrades staring as the green flew away, into obscurity.

"Wh-what's going on?!" Cynthia shouted.

"What do you think?!" Florian shouted back. "They're expecting us!"

 _Of course_ they were: the Ministry had so much noise about the mission.

"They've begun their attack early!"

"What now?!"

"THEY'RE ON BROOMS!"

Twenty-four necks swerved; blood drained from faces at the sight of nearly twice as many broomsticks drawing with frightening velocity. Wands pulled, aimed—streams of light crackled in cold wind as hexes sped at them.

Rose jerked upwards to dodge a stream of silver, yanked her weapon in split-second motion, and wove an enchantment: A covering; Thick smog swirled out the tip of wand, engulfing the space in between with heavy smoke. Her fellow aurors, still rattled, took the chance to steady themselves and draw their wands.

For a few minutes, no-one could see.

Once all the smoke was gone, more hexes, fired with the relentlessness of a machine gun through open air. Waves of heat collided with cold. Hovering bodies jerked up and down, back and forth, to dodge. The battle's pace was too fast to process: disorientating beams of lights in both directions, zipping across vision in an explosive firework-like frenzy.

One hit Kovy in the chest, knocking him off his broom.

Her heart panicked.

 _No no no no…_

Shifting her broomstick, she swerved after his falling form. Straight down.

"My hand!" she screamed, extending it out as she drew closer, hair surging behind her. "Grab it!"

Both of them torrenting violently through air, she saw him stare back with a blank look. His eyes widened.

"ROSE LOOK OUT—"

A blow of something, _a spell_ , against the back of her head and pain deafened all other sensations. Arms lost control; she swerved violently, headed in a different trajectory. Everything must've slowed; time, the fall. Her mouth opened to—she wasn't sure, maybe to scream—and droplets of red spattered out into the harsh wind.

Kovy was gone; the other aurors were gone; she could not see where they went.

It was just her, hurtling through blackness.

.

.

.

Collapsed in a bed of snow, a moan released from her mouth, unbearable pain stretching through her chest. Neck lifted, spun back and forth: she'd fallen into the thick of warped trees. Branches twisted overhead in a span of broken limbs, a cage-like construction of spindly appendages.

Hopelessness flared but was swallowed, beat down by her brain. Wiping frozen saliva and dirtied blood off chin with her sleeve, she swallowed a sob and forced herself up. A broken rib— maybe two. Falling through branches had left her bruised, covered in scratches. It didn't matter. There was a ringing in her ears, the nervous bleeding of an organ somewhere inside her. Hunched and heavy, she began trudging through knee-deep snow, bones rattling, every ache gonging at her.

There was no time to feel pain—only _think_.

Breath squeezed in short, hard bursts. Eyes stung with cold. One arm clasped around her belly to hold herself, feet moved on their own accord, stumbling over frozen landscape. Her sagging body moved without thought, propelled by mad impulse. She did not know where she was heading.

Unless, maybe she did.

 _Yes_

She did, she did! In her thoughts surfaced a memory, the vaguest memory imaginable, that was either sheer luck or absolute madness—and she recalled that she had been here once. She and Albus—when they were twelve, Christmas vacation, having snowball fights, out on one of their adventures.

With careful limping steps, her body managed to climb the familiar snow gully against an icy whiplash of wind. Then: a step up onto a steep wall, with no guarantee of easier movement forward. This was where Albus had once offered out his mitted hand to help her up.

No hand reached for her now.

She grit her teeth and did it though, on her own, surprised herself even. Small, imbedded stones littered the snow as she drew closer to the dark mouth of a cavern, where she must've been heading all alone. The entrance was jagged and uneven.

Trapped in fierce darkness, she tread carefully, hands making contact with wall—smooth stone. Fingers nicked a strange textured rock and flaming torches sparked to life, bathing the cavern in light as it had years ago.

"Rose?"

Neck turned and eyes made contact with eyes. Bright green eyes.

"Uncle Harry?"


	27. Find

His face was shadowed by flickering torchlights.

"Merlin," said the voice, small and hoarse. "You were so little when I last saw you."

She wobbled forward, legs unsteady, her breath squeezing out in tight, pained pants. "Is that really you?" she managed and reached out with a trembling hand. His grasped it and with unexpected strength he pulled until her head was nestled against a bony shoulder. She felt a face's harsh bristle against hers. She pressed her cold eyelids into his warm neck, and tried to breathe—the pain inside her chest had become _suffocating_.

His arms wrapped quickly and suddenly as her legs gave out, one at her waist, the other at her upper back, holding her steady; a father's hold. "You're wounded," came the urgent voice at her ear. "What happened?"

"I fell—I was flying—hurts, hurts whenever I—"

"Relax your muscles," Harry instructed.

She did so, her eyes shut tight, trying not to whimper at the bolts of pain shooting through her with every small movement. With great care and tenderness, she was lain across the cavern floor. Cold fingers slipped under her clothes, sliding along her ribcage to map out the source, quick and clinical like a healer. "Broken," Harry whispered. There was a strange pause, and then, "Do you have your wand?"

Taking labored breaths, she reached into the deep pocket of her snowsuit and procured it.

Her uncle's gentle fingers stroked stray hairs from her forehead. "The enchantment is _Ossium Emendo."_

She wondered why he was telling her this, why he didn't just cast it himself, but couldn't bring herself to ask at that moment. Quickly casting the spell, she tried not to fidget as ribs mashed together inside of her and pain died down, replaced with a dull ache. Her head hurt terribly, and she waited a few moments before working up the nerve to finally open her eyes.

Uncle Harry was… frighteningly gaunt, hollowed in cheeks, sunken eyes behind his circular frames. Grey streaked unkempt black hair while creases defiled a face worn by age and toil.

"You look just like your parents," he breathed, staring at her, his voice strangulated with emotion, "Merlin, you look like a perfect mixture of both. It's been so long…"

Tears streamed out the ends of her eyes, down her temples, seeping into her hair.

She couldn't believe how she'd found this place—it was sheer, stupid luck at best. She'd fallen off her broomstick and landed into the thick of trees by the old lodge they stayed at the one Christmas they came up here, and some part of her subconscious had recognized the area. The day she and Al had gone exploring…and they'd followed Uncle Harry into a cave but he'd caught them and—

Her heart raced faster. She and Al had spent _ages_ looking for the man, and here he was, in a capsule from childhood that neither of them had remembered to dig up. Looking like a corpse but – _alive_.

"Why are you here?" Her voice was a fragile whisper.

His face darkened. "I—" He gave a hefty sigh. "There's so much I should—"

There was loud _crack_ of apparition and both their bodies jolted, heads turning toward direction from where it had come; the opening of the cavern. Their vision to the world outside was obscured by heavy, flurrying snow.

Harry rose to his feet, hastily moving toward the rocky wall, and pressed down a stone with his palm. Instantly, the torchlights flickered off, covering them in darkness. "Rose," came an urgent whisper, "Cast _Mufflaito_."

Startled for a moment, she quickly keened into her senses, and sat upright, doing what he said.

She could hear approaching footsteps. Men shouting.

 _Crows._

Large treacherous-looking silhouettes of men flitted across the cavern mouth and the muscles in her arms shivered, fingers clenching around wand. Tension gnawed at her insides. Just then, there was the warmth of something whirring in her pocket, the muffled crackle of a familiar voice—her comlink.

She'd nearly forgotten.

 _"Rose, are you ok?!"_ It was Cynthia.

She pulled it out with shivering fingers and held it to her mouth. "I'm fine." Her eyes remained fixated at the opening, darting intently with every shadow that flickered by. _Don't come in, don't come in…_

"What happened with Kovy?"

" _He's fine. We just found him…he's alright, just a bit banged up."_

Something loosened inside her chest. "Oh thank Merlin," she breathed.

" _Rose, listen,_ _you're not safe. The Crows went after you when they saw you fall – they're on the ground, looking for you."_

The rustling of footsteps again. Sitting in the dark, she made herself swallow a deep breath.

"I'll handle the Crows." Her voice wavered. "What you lot need to do in the meantime is head to the settlement."

 _"Wait, how will you—"_

"Let them come after me: It'll keep them distracted. Now, listen to me very carefully. They know we're here now. It's only a matter of time before Paisley starts his attack. You don't have very long, hours maybe… you need to head to the settlement and evacuate _everyone_."

 _"Rose—there's not enough time to—what if people don't listen?"_

"Then stun them and haul their stupid arses out!" she snapped fiercely, surprised at her own anger. Her newly healed chest gave an ache. "There's no time to be worried about convincing people! Who cares about their feelings—we're trying to prevent _deaths_!"

No reply from the comlink. Cynthia must've been shaking in her shoes.

Rose was aware the order she'd given was terrible in essence. The papers would have a field day with it. At best, it'd be an overzealous precaution and at worst, the ugly fist of a forming authoritarian regime. Either way you spun it, a political disaster. But in that moment she couldn't bring herself to care.

The ghost of Little Norton resurfaced, burning bodies, lolling heads, skin peeling off bone…all the carnage raced through her mind again. She'd been a naïve girl back then, barely able to fend for herself, acting on the impulsive _tick-tick-tick_ inside her chest.

She had clarity of purpose now. And more responsibility than she could've ever wanted. And not enough time.

The strengths and weakness of her fellow officers were obvious by now: Cynthia would never lead out such an order. Of their lot, Florian had the least problem acting with crude force.

"Hand me off to Dubois," Rose ordered.

After a brief pause, the Frenchman's voice crackled: _"Everything alright, Weasley?"_

"Did you hear everything I said? Can you do what I asked?"

 _"Yes and yes."_

"Then you're in charge," she said. "Move fast. I'll find you when I can."

 _"Godspeed, Weasley. And try not to get killed down there…I really don't want to be in charge for long."_

Snapping off the device, she tucked back into her snowsuit just as a hand gripped her shoulder. Harry. She rattled and looked up, trying to make out her uncle's face through the darkness; All she saw was a blink.

"I—I've made some enemies," she stammered to explain. "It's a long stor—"

"It's fine. We can catch up later." He tugged at her hand, pulling her up. "Let's get you somewhere safe."

.

.

Wizard's chess. He was in a game of wizard's chess. A pawn that both sides wanted to play.

Trapped in the midst of two men—both kings in their own right. One an ancient wizard masquerading as god. The other, a muggle masquerading as a wizard. Both were frauds. Highly dangerous. And as it seemed, had a history together.

Albus was no fool. He'd known the creature had sent him to the Highlands not only to kill the crime-lord, but to replace him. _Become_ him.

First and foremost a young man of calculation, it hadn't taken long for Albus to determine how his _skewed_ his chances of survival were, in the grand scheme of things. If he failed to kill Paisley, then the creature was certain to kill him. If he succeeded, he would become the next 'Graham Paisley'...and it was likely the creature would one day dispose of him the same way... The future had been determined without his permission.

[die now]

[die later]

And _neither_ of the endings sounded appealing.

In the end, it was the crime-lord who proposed the most appealing third option of allying up, if temporarily, _against_ the creature.

"Room's too crowded." Paisley took a deep snort of cocaine off the blade of a pocket-knife. "You eliminate the biggest threat in the room. Becomes all the more spacious."

"Brilliant. Absolute pinnacle of logic."

"Cocky little shit, aren't you?" came the dark grumble.

Head angled back, holding a cocaine-infused cigarette between his lips busy taking a hit of his own, Al's eyes fluttered open. He glanced up to meet the crime-lord's daggered stare as the man rose to his feet, dusted powder off his robes, and stormed away in a strange agitation, his cloak billowing behind him. With raised brows Albus straightened to his feet as well, and followed suit.

"I'd give you a proper beating if you were younger. Always fixed my son's cocky mouth," the man spat harshly into the wind, storming ahead.

"You had a son?"

"And a daughter and wife, the whole package."

He made sure to wait a longer beat, before, "How did they die?"

"Who said they were dead?"

A pause.

"Nah, I'm just kidding." Paisely turned around, just as gust of wind blew, fissured lip stretched in an unpleasant grin. " _Of course_ they're dead. Cygnus doesn't like loose ends…He picks his dark lords with care, see? Picks the isolated ones, estranged ones, the ones no one would come after…no one would miss if they disappeared from the face of the earth."

Albus was quiet then. Twenty-one years old now, and in that moment, he felt sorely aware that most of his conversations had only ever been in his head. He supposed that he was the same. It felt pointless to even imagine it but he did not suppose his family had ever bothered to investigate what became to him. Except perhaps Rose.

[ _don't_ ]

It was too late. Thoughts about his cousin was the one of many mental segue ways that led to a veritable rabbit hole of unease. Albus was rarely unwise enough to fall under disillusions—he had always been wary and critical of sentiment.

Cygnus had been clever, never quite calling the affliction by its name. _You are in pain, Albus_. Except that it wasn't just pain, it was a very human heartache—the organ he could fumble back together—Cygnus had mentioned it entirely to assert dominance and eventually drag him down into complacency…and, in that offering, Al's mind began to once more fall into the familiar structure of rational thought. He needed the sedation of magic, of plans and deductions and questions of exploration, and ultimately, the even keel of his functioning mind to properly assess his next step in his ultimate quest for….whatever it was that he truly desired…It was confusing enough to be indirectly confronted about pining after your own cousin, but to compound the already confusing shame involved... his mind replicated the memory of their near-kiss time and time again. It was a wash of…warmth in a sea of cold emotions. The anger he'd felt at Little Norton, the adrenaline-fueled terror—the hopelessness of it all. Survivors of traumatic events were often intercepted by the presence of their own failure in a given situation—

Albus didn't want to focus on her anymore—didn't want to prod at the memory of a thing he couldn't have. Cold, surging winds assaulted his body while a dozen Crows stalked behind him and Paisley, trailing through snow at an upwards slope back towards the peak. Albus had noticed that the Paisley was guarded at all times, though he rarely acknowledged his men— as though guards were a mere bothersome accessory that came with being the most wanted wizard in England.

Once at the top, they stopped and took in the grand span of mountainous terrain, the town below that was dotted with buildings and brimming with movement—it had a strange tension radiating from it. Albus stared and stared, squinting, feeling frustrated and overwhelmed for the vaguest inexplicable reason, as if he'd been given too much skin and had too little teeth to bite back with.

"You are aware of how disclosure works, aren't you, Evans?" the crime-lord interrupted his train of thought, a bit snidely. "I tell you about my family, you tell me about yours. Both parties engage. Common convention…It's what people _do_."

"I'm more interested in discussing your plan to thwart Cygnus than exchanging dreary life stories."

Paisley clucked his tongue. "I won't trust if I know nothing about you. Alliances don't work otherwise… certainly not one as fragile as this one." A strange pause. "You mentioned you had a father at one point. Tell me about the tragic bloke."

"I hated him."

"Short, concise. I like it. All fathers are terrible creatures, muggle or wizard. Never heard of a father that wasn't awful at his job. As far as I'm concerned, doesn't _exist_."

Another strange pause.

"So no mother, Evans?"

"No mother," Albus snapped.

"Touchy subject?"

The wind had picked up. He drew his cloak tighter around himself, shivering, ignoring the man's twisted grin, and threw the cigarette he'd lost appetite for to the ground. "Explain to me again," he twisted it with his shoe, relishing the way ashes fettered into the air, "explain to me just how your wand allows you to use magic."

A hand dipped into robes, and out procured the instrument. Another pointed at the hilt—the green stone.

"Just what do you know about the manifest of magic, Evans?"

"Nothing." It was a lie. He had a recollection of reading something about it in his father's research once but wanted a deeper explanation. "Tell me about it."

A shark-like grin etched over the crime-lord's face, sharp and leery, and he gave a cackling laugh. For whatever reason Albus did not understand, and hardly had time to process a suitable reaction as an aggressive arm wound around his neck—he could only assume it was meant to be display of camaraderie, though it felt like Paisley was trying to strangle him. Behind, even the guards stared in dismay.

[the crime-lord was high]

[his mood swings were _atrocious_ ]

Jabbing a sharp elbow into the man's stomach, Albus sent him fumbling into the snow—Using brute force felt good, better than anything had in a long time. The guards immediately drew their wands in alarm, and he raised his arms over his head, indicating that he wasn't dangerous, all the while swallowing the passionate impulse to continue the attack, to kick the fallen crime-lord in the stomach again and again and _again_ —

"Can you feel it, Evans?"

Lying on the ground half-covered in snow, Paisley stared into air with a lost expression, clearly disaffected by the violence delivered to him. He waved an irritable hand, telling his guards to lower his wands. They did so cautiously and he took a large whiff of the air, releasing a content sigh. "The magic, can you smell it?"

When Albus didn't bother with a reply, the man reached into his pockets, pulling out a small box and opening it delicately, and removed a stone with gloved fingers, lifting it into the air.

It was large, oval-shaped, translucent, the center brimming with a bright green light that reflected in the man's wild eyes. There was a slight chip into it, a missing piece the size of a pebble—the bit imbedded in the crime-lord's wand.

"The creature said he had it at one point," Paisley's voice was hoarse, "A long time ago, before he lost it. Said he was only able to carve out the smallest piece. Said it was too dangerous to use any other way. But you see, Evans, even a tiny piece allows me to destroy _cities_." A manic grin broke. "Can you fathom the power of the _entire_ stone?"

Albus couldn't tear his eyes from it. "How does it…." he paused to swallow; his mouth had run dry. "How does it work?"

"It's the source of all magic. Magic _exists_ for you to use, you wizards, because the stone exists. I imagine I can wield magic by sheer proximity to it." The man's eyes gleamed with raw hunger. "Can you believe that _I'm_ the one found it? Of all his dark lords. Me, the lowly _muggle_ one."

Without warning, the crime-lord tossed the stone high in the air.

His heart gave an unusual jolt—Albus lunged forward, but Paisley was quick to swipe it with his fingers first.

"I knew you'd do that," the man said vindictively. "No need to worry, I have no intentions of destroying your livelihood. It's _my_ livelihood too now…But do you see why you're out of your depth? You can't replace me. You can't even _touch_ me." A mad grin. "And neither can Cygnus."

Eyes wide, Albus stared and stared until it clicked.

[the stone]

[Cygnus wanted the _stone_ ]

"You haven't seen him the way I have yet, Evans. You have no clue what he's capable of, just how far he goes to make you his own…. he's endless, restless, _a void_. He rapes your mind, rapes your emotions and your soul. Can you imagine having to endure him in your head for years and years and years driving you to the edge of _suicide_ —only he won't let you die, not until he's done with you." A cracking laugh, but Albus could hear the strain at the end of it. "...he may be done with me now…but it just so happens _I'm_ not done." Fury took the crime-lord's voice once more. "There's nothing in this world that touches him, nothing that _satiates_ him…he's an aberration… He could destroy everything if he wanted."

"I take it you're already doing that for him."

Paisley's head snapped towards him. "Is that what you think I'm doing? You think I'm out to destroy the world?"

"The wizarding world, yes."

"So what if I am? What good have wizards done for anyone?" A snarl curled. "And the creature… he's a wizard, isn't he? He's a fucked up demon of your kind. He's _your_ mess."

At these brutal words, Albus felt a burning inside his skin that he'd never imagined possible—Never before had he believed himself to hold loyalties towards anything in particular, not his family, not his school, not his country, and certainly not the ministry of magic...And now, _now_ , he felt the scorching sting of offense for all wizardkind.

"And what makes you any better?" He heard himself snap, quite sharply. "You're a muggle borrowing magic from the same race you plan to destroy in willful genocide. You're worse than an aberration; you're a _parasite_."

Paisley remained unperturbed.

There it was again, then, the filthy, guileless grin. The grin of a muggle who had fallen in their world by chance and landed straight onto the throne. The grin of one who did not belong, a mercenary, a _terrorist_.

Albus stared coldly as Paisley rose to his feet, strolled over to the edge of the peak, and stared down at the settlement.

"I'm not interested in being _better_ ," he spoke, with an eerie calm. "No point in being high and valiant when the world's in the gutters, is it? And your world, in particular, is a fucking _mess_ …"

Paisley yanked his wand from his pocket and pointed it at the sky, shooting a furious, surging beam of red into the dark violent sky, so hot that it burned smoke through the freezing air.

Sparks of light exploded across the stretch of the black heavens. Hellfire surged.

The bombings had begun.

.

.

.

They'd scurried over pebbled floor and frozen dirt, shifting deeper into the cavern, ground becoming slicker, the damp smell of mud more pungent, walls closing in around them. Harry had relented on. She'd swallowed a flare of anxiety, squeezing through tunnel after tunnel to keep up.

Moments later it was dark, far too dark, and she hastily pulled her wand to cast _accio_ , illuminating a narrow passageway that Harry gestured her through. Once inside, her mouth fell open. Storage cartons filled with cans, firewood, water bottles, clothing, batteries, flashlights, lined the large stone chamber.

It occurred to her that Uncle Harry had been living here for _ages_.

"Things are getting bad out there," he muttered, closing the passageway behind them.

She said nothing, couldn't muster the words, watching him walk over to the center of the room, where there was a deeply entrenched pit of fire, crackling with dying embers. He sat down on the floor and used a stick to get the fire going. Removing his gloves, he held his hands over orange flames, and looked up, at her trembling form, imploringly. With a careful hand, he patted the spot beside himself, indicating that she should sit.

She didn't move.

His forehead etched. "Rose," he said. "Can you tell me what happened to my family? Ginny, Lily, and James?"

"They're in France."

Relief fluttered over his features.

"And Albus?" he said, with a peculiar carefulness. "Do you know, erm, know _where_ he is right now?"

She released a shaky sigh. "Heaven…I hope."

A stunned silence passed.

"A few years ago, uhm, we got caught up in magical bombings, and… well he didn't make it,"

"Magical bombings," Uncle Harry echoed, the look on his face unreadable, and then grew silent for a bit.

Fire crackled in the fragile space between them.

"Will you come sit beside me? I promise I'm not going to hurt you…I just haven't seen you in seven years."

A blink. She gave a careful nod and made strides over, and sank down on the floor beside him.

His forehead wrinkled. "A bit closer, Rose, if that's ok." In his voice was the oddest desperation.

A bit startled at first, she shifted closer and he reached out to wrap his cloak over her shoulders as well, so that they were shyly huddled together, sharing warmth. She wondered why he didn't just cast a heating charm. The awkwardness was quickly replaced with pity once she heard his rattling of his teeth, and was dismayed, once again, at how thin he'd gotten. She struggled to visualize his handsome youth, in which he might've resembled a version of Albus…the thought alone made her heart give a painful jolt.

Then she was thinking of Albus, only of Albus, of cupping his bruised face in their final moments together at Little Norton, of fingers that had melded so perfectly with hers, of his cracked voice and bloodshot eyes and his warm, smoky smell and everything else that was lost to her forever now. She was reminded that this was the man who had damaged her cousin's psyche with cruel and unusual lessons. _Ginny kicked him out at sixteen, do you know that?_ She wanted to scream in her uncle's face. A thousand furious questions and accusations pressed at her tongue but no words formed.

"I'm sorry, Rose," he broke silence first, with a whisper. "I can see that you're hurting."

The words hit her hard, harder than expected. She was crying now, and there were fingers in her hair; rough hands, stroking, comforting. They were a father's hands. She had to swallow her mangled feelings, and remember that he had no right to say words like that to her. As if treating her like a daughter now would atone for what he'd done to Albus.

"We spent so much time looking for you, do you know that?"

"I imagine that you did…I wish that it didn't have to be like that."

"So then why?" She yanked her body away, turning to look at him with a wounded expression. "Why put us through it all? Why all the secrecy and hiding? Why hide out here like some—some—"

"Muggle?" he finished, and smiled at her a bit sadly. "I'm afraid that's what I am now."

Her head spun.

"I can't use magic anymore; that's why I've been asking you to cast all the spells. I don't have the ability to wield it…It was taken from me a long time ago, by a creature… a creature whose hunger can't be sated."

Speechless, utterly bewildered at this revelation, she could only stare.

He grabbed at her arm, lifting up her hand, the fingers of which were clenched around her wand. He had her point the wand at him. "Use Legilimency," he said, nodding. "Go inside in my head. I'll show you everything you need to know to understand."

 **If you've read this far, would love to know what you think!**


	28. Find pt 2

Previously on Clash…

 _"_ _We spent so much time looking for you, do you know that?"_

 _"_ _I imagine that you did…I wish that it didn't have to be like that."_

 _"_ _So then why?" She pulled away, face crumpled. "Why put us through it all? Why all the secrecy and hiding? Why hide out here like some—some—"_

 _"_ _Muggle?" he finished, and smiled at her a bit sadly. "I'm afraid that's what I am now."_

 _Her head spun._

 _"_ _I can't use magic anymore; that's why I've been asking you to cast all the spells. I don't have the ability to wield it…It was taken from me a long time ago, by a creature… a creature whose hunger can't be sated."_

 _Speechless, utterly bewildered at this revelation, she could only stare._

 _He grabbed at her arm, lifting up her hand, the fingers of which were clenched around her wand. He had her point the wand at him. "Use Legilimency," he said, nodding. "Go inside in my head. I'll show you everything you need to know to understand."_

.

.

.

 **It's…c-cold…**

 **...Uncle Harry?**

 **Where am I?**

 **I can't s-see my b-b-body, what's happening? Oh god, oh** ** _god_** **—**

 _Breathe, Rose… Just breathe… Your body has disappeared but you're safe…I promise… Let's just say that this form of Legilimency, much more…_ _ **effective**_ _than the usual way… You're deep inside my mind…. You see Rose, I…may have lost my capacity for magic years ago… but there are tricks to the craft that one never_ _ **unlearns**_ _._

.

.

Not five hours had passed since she'd been hurtling through air, tossed from broomstick by Graham Paisley's impromptu airstrike, and now here she was, hurtling through the darkness of her uncle's mind…down a never-ending tunnel…trying to fight the viscosity of his thoughts. She tried her hardest to preen Harry's voice from the dreamy cacophony of sounds – the clap of thunder, the roar of spellfire, distant yelling and screaming …she was falling headfirst into a **memory** …

Knees into mud, she landed with a loud _squelch_ , and was startled as cold wetness seeped through her pants. Legilimency didn't normally allow you to experience things to this extend, did it? Harry's method seemed shaky and experimental at best, but given what Rose knew, she wasn't the least bit surprised Harry had been tampering with magic…it ran in the family.

Dark quickly warped into wilderness, surroundings sharpening as the memory came to full strength. The air felt warm. Before a blink could occur to process it all, Rose caught the unmistakable figure of young Harry Potter running past her… he looked scraggly, bloodied, no older than eighteen…

They were in the Forbidden Forest.

She knew at once what this memory was about.

 **I'm at…the Battle of Hogwarts? Why are you showing me this one?**

There was no answer. Not quite understanding, but quickly orienting herself, Rose flit through the span of trees, keeping pace with her young Harry Potter as he cut out from the thick of woods…footsteps slowing as he drew closer to a clearing. A fire burned in the middle, casting shadows upon the crowd of hooded figures—Death Eaters—and the man Rose unmistakable knew was Tom Riddle. White-skinned, with a serpentine appearance.

He spoke in a chilling voice, his eyes on the leaping flames.

"I thought he would come. I expected him to come. I was, it seems…. mistaken."

"You weren't."

Rose stared, aghast, as young Harry answered and stepped out from the shadows, revealing himself to the Dark Lord. She was amazed that her uncle, no more than eighteen years old, was prepared to face death so readily-or was it _Death_?

At once, a bright green light emitted from the end of Voldemort's wand and Rose felt a deafening blow to her chest as Harry fell to the ground. She knew that this happened, but seeing it firsthand made it all the more shocking.

The rest of the scene faded, the forest, the Death Eaters, the body of her fallen uncle… And Rose stood in absolute darkness, staring at Tom Riddle who stared back at her directly. As though he could _see_ her.

 **Except…the Killing Curse didn't kill you that night, did it, Uncle Harry? Because of the eighth horcrux. The piece of Riddle's soul inside you.**

Again, her uncle's voice didn't answer. She was alone, and this was no ordinary memory. Feeling apprehension, Rose tried not to fidget under the piercing red of Tom Riddle's stare.

If she could feel sensations…could she feel pain? If Voldemort could somehow see her though Harry's memory, could he hurt her? _Would_ he?

Her grip on her wand tightened.

Sensing her fear, a singularly mirthless smile curled across Tom Riddle's lipless mouth. He stepped forward.

"You are correct, girl. As much as I would've preferred it… Potter did not die that night. Our souls were more entangled than I could've possibly known. My Killing Curse sent him to a much different location."

Rose was awe-struck. Voldemort was speaking to her!

"As to where he went instead, it's a place neither here nor there, but for brevity – we'll call it King's Cross," Tom Riddle said flatly. "There he encountered…an old fool, who gave him some rather unfortunate advice."

"Dumbledore?"

Tom Riddle's red eyes flashed. They seemed to burn in the firelight. With a nod and a flash of blurred movement he stood towering, with a serpentine smile, his presence terrifying. Rose felt her knees buckle.

"So, you're the girl," Riddle spoke softly. He tilted his head in consideration, trailing a long white finger along her cheek. "A soft little thing…"

"Hands off, Riddle."

Their heads turned, and her uncle stood there, a grown man once more.

"No touching my niece," Harry said, eyes narrowed. "I didn't bring her here for you to toy around with."

"Then what on earth did you bring her for?" Riddle answered dully, stepping aside. "You're wasting my time, Potter… I've grown tired of battle reenactments."

"She deserves answers."

"That's not it," Riddle observed, his voice acerbic. "You're doing this because you remain as idiotically sentimental about your family as ever…when will you learn? Spoon feeding answers to the next generation won't accomplish anything. Your children succeed by their own cleverness…or they'll die."

"Let's take a moment to remember how that worked out for _you._ "

Utter silence.

 _"_ Trust in my instincts, Riddle…they've proven to be better than yours."

Riddle snorted.

Harry sent him a level stare. "We both want Cygnus gone, don't we? Have patience," he said.

"Who's Cygnus?" Rose asked quietly.

Both Harry and Riddle turned to her.

Harry spoke first. "I forgot to mention this earlier, Rose… but Albus isn't dead. There's a… man in our world who won't let him die, not while my son is at his magical prime."

"I still can't believe you named your son after that ignorant fool," Riddle muttered. He wasn't looking at either of them, but deliberating the Elder Wand between his long fingers. "All that work for the Greater Good, but no idea of the creature lurking under his very nose…fool…"

Harry ignored Riddle's comments.

"As for the creature Tom is referring to, Rose...that is Cygnus. He doesn't exist. He has no history…no origin…he's just always… _been_ … from what we've spent lifetimes gathering. He was even able to evade the detection of Albus Dumbledore—which means a great deal. I've travelled all over the globe, but there are no answers, no explanations – not in this world."

"Nor the next," Riddle added, his voice dry. "Death holds a great many things of interest, but alas—no answers." With a tired sigh, he tucked away the wand he was fiddling with, and glanced up at Rose.

"Just what does your niece know about Resurrection?"

.

.

In what was the strangest tragedy of all, a muggle had fallen in love with _magic_.

Graham Paisley wore a borrowed crown, with no intentions of returning it to their benefactor – and why would he? Magic was the closest humanity would get to brushing robes with a god, even if it was a god Albus didn't particularly believe in—belief was an odd thing in retrospect…. it brought hope and comfort to the foolish, but for him it was not the least bit comforting to imagine that a higher power may have existed… an all-knowing, preternatural being who governed their lives—if gods were anything like fathers, then they had been _long_ abandoned.

So what did Albus believe in? Legs and arms limp, body lain across the grey cell, filthy, bruised, shivering….he found the only suitable answer was _himself_. His magic. The Crime Lord had been angered at being called a parasite and had the guards drag 'Evans' back to his cell— and because he couldn't be persuaded with the _Cruciatus_ , they'd decided the next best thing was _physical_ _mutilation_. Muggle brutality. They'd stripped his shirt, beat him repeatedly until everything blurred to red.

So now he lay cheek pressed against the cold, damp floor, fingers curling weakly at his sides. Wetness rang along his temples, and a sickened shudder choked from his mouth—he couldn't bring himself to check whether the liquid was sweat or blood.

[ _focus_ ]

Magic had a manifest. Magic came from a source.

A _stone_.

Albus had a history of chasing knowledge—a siphon towards the infinite cosmos; his mind drew open, as a cavernous maw, consuming all that would approach…the abyss of his consciousness took in details as varied and eclectic as one could imagine—he'd studied magical theory for years and years, memorized the nuances through exhaustive reading and lecturing by his father, and understood that while magic was not quantifiable—while it did not exist in a mathematical capacity— neither was it a work of hokey folktale gibberish… Science joined with all that was profound and mystical in this world to birth magic, which was the essence of consciousness— electricity of the _mind_ — configured by genetics and fueled by intelligence, levels of training, sheer brute will, and _now_ —

A stone.

A stone that lit the sky aflame.

A stone that would destroy England.

On the cusp of power so grand, so grand and so very terrible, he stared onto the monolith of another unasked question-Just why had he been sent to kill Graham Paisley? Why had god-like father-like Cygnus selected _…him_? What made him a more appealing wizard than, say, Rose? There was no prophecy to mark him as their generation's messiah, no morality underlying his choices…where his cousin was weighed by softer emotions—Albus operated without such petty constraints. History would never mark him a saint. Yet the daunting question loomed so tall that it cast an intimidating shadow:

Just what would Albus Potter do with _that_ much magic?

He was here now, at Paisley's fortress, in proximity to power so utterly bright and blinding it evoke terror—terror and _hunger_ —and yet he lacked direction. While Albus had never strived for world domination, at least not specifically, he wasn't one to shy from the prospect…not when opportunity presented on a silver platter.

Still.

Lofty crowns and skyhigh thrones did not hold the same appeal as a stone _that could_ _alter the very fabric of magic_. From what he understood, only a small fragment was required to destroy spans of land as large as cities, which made the unstable Graham Paisley's possession of the artefact was as dangerous as the Creature's. Albus felt that the Stone rightfully belonged to him. Cygnus could not be trusted and Graham Paisley was a mere muggle, masquerading as a wizard— he used the Stone's power in broad, stupid strokes, destroying whatever in his path presented the slightest challenge—he was lazy with it. _Clumsy_.

"Evans?! What happened?"

Albus was hardly conscious enough to process that Rachel stood frozen outside the cell, eyes wide at the sight of him laying bloodied and bruised.

"C'mhere …" He beckoned her with the direct, verbal command. "Take out your wand…Put me against the wall," he wheezed out the flat order. Unlocking the cell, she abided, lifting his body so that he was seated on his arse, and casting a healing charm…she climbed into his lap, and flushed when he murmured _hold me steady_ against her cheek.

It was more desperation than fondness that spurred this need for physical closeness. He grasped at female fingers, guiding them toward his scalp, and was quick to compress his face against the soft skin of her neck, as if to bring a pause to all his higher functions…an estrogen-fueled female that he just needed to _focus_ on –but even hormones couldn't slow his racing thoughts, couldn't bring his brain to lowered efficiency… His hand slipped under her robes until callused fingers were kneading at her breast. He waited for her shudder before continuing.

"Is this the right time for—"

"Don't talk, it makes you less attractive."

Her mouth sealed, allowing him to do what she'd clearly come here to do. Her small feminine fingers trailed down his scalp to his clenched jawline, in some superficial effort to provide comfort …. all he could feel was _frustration_. He felt more anger at this frustration—she was pretty, accessible, and came with _oh so little shame_ —and it was all his fault that he still couldn't enjoy it…couldn't enjoy her…the world swung around him like a top, and he endured the tremor long to enough to know that he was descending into insanity once more. Anger began to fill his unsteadied mind… all that rage pinpointed to the woman in his lap and within a violent half-second he wanted to _slaughter_ Rachel, wrap hands around her windpipe and _force_ the air out…he wanted to make her writhe and squeal and _scream_ , but for all his lust for carnage he wouldn't—she meant nothing and it'd be worthless, all so _worthless_ —fingers gripped more harshly at her breast, twisting a nipple until she yelped—

Hands shoved her out of his lap at once.

Rachel skid across the stone-floor until her body came to halt. She stared back, dumbfounded.

"What the fuck was that?!"

Albus was disheveled, breathing heavily. He croaked a quick 'sorry', and rubbed against the ache where his prosthetic attached to his arm stub, fighting the maddening urge to clench his magical fist and tear off the bars of the cell with _Carpe Retractum_. Paisley couldn't suspect that he was capable of wandless magic. Discretion was vital, after all, for maintaining that advantage for when he needed it.

The falling acceleration of bombs could be heard from outside, ground rattling beneath his feet. His teeth rattled inside his skull.

"What's happening out there?"

"The attack?"

"Yes, that."

Rachel was busy adjusting her bra under her robes, now that their sexual tryst had failed. "Well that was _always_ going to happen. Graham's just started the attack early because aurors showed up, led by none other than that blasted Ressurectionist…"

In the midst of chaos, clarity came in the form of these words.

"She's here?"

 **AN: I'm back.**


	29. Find pt 3

AN For the first portion of the dialogue, since it's happening in Harry's mindscape: _Harry,_ **Rose,** and Tom Riddle

.

.

.

"Just what does your niece know about Resurrection?" 

**I know enough.**

When she brought her brother back from the dead— It was Tom Riddle's horcrux-making that had served the basis of inspiration of her method.

And here she was, face to face with the dark wizard himself.

"Then understand this, girl…there are ways to transcend Death, but once you cross completely – it becomes _permanent_ There is only one wizard in the history of time who has returned, and he paid a grave price for it. He left behind a piece of his soul to make the process work, and in doing so, became both a diety and a godless abomination— _That_ is Cygnus."

Rose blinked at this information, as though the name was supposed to be familiar and yet it wasn't. The memory around her shifted and there she was, watching as Harry and Voldemort were locked in a duel on that fateful evening of battle—both shot enchantments that came to meet half-way… held each other at bay in both the singular, and the most spectacular, visual representation of _Priori Incantatem_ Rose had ever seen.

 **Uncle Harry. What does Cygnus…have to do with you and Voldemort?**

 _"Simply put, Cygnus killed Voldemort for me."_

Rose stared as the red flare grew brighter, slowly diminishing the green the emitted from Voldemort's wand, until it had destroyed the wizard completely. Flash forward and Voldemort was dead and people were cheering and Harry stood surrounded by his friends.

 _"I didn't know what he'd done at first. I thought I'd only been lucky with my expelliarmus charm, but maybe I suspected…something…something was wrong…Once he found me and told what he'd done he'd secured my loyalty for life. You can't imagine the shame…that comes with knowing you're a fraud…I didn't have the nerve to face anyone for ages."_

Rose's mum had once said that Uncle Harry disappeared for a few years after the battle at Hogwarts – perhaps this was why. **I can't believe it**. A pause. **But you're _not_ a fraud.**

 _"I made my peace with it a while ago, Rose. From that moment on, I became determined not to be. Once Cygnus made his intentions obvious – I knew he couldn't be trusted."_

 **What did he want from you?**

 _"In a world of selfish and unreliable psychopaths—I was a breath of fresh air to him…he wanted my loyalty, wanted me to find something for him…He wanted me to track down a stone…"_

Another memory undercut the current one, it was of an older Harry and young Albus travelling—Rose was yanked through more clouds of haze, until she was watching a Harry scour darkened cavernous spaces, clearly on the prowl for something. Each moment blurred into the next, until at last Rose was viewing Harry being struck down, screaming, a silvery powdery essence being sucked out of him….

It took her a second to process what was happening.

He was the inside of the shack!

If Harry was inside the shack, then where was Albus?

Rose, with her translucent body cut through the walls of the shack, to where child Albus was standing, right out the firmly locked door, listening to the torturous screams of his father, tears silently trailing down his tiny face.

 _"The creature is…insatiable_ _…Magic is his life-force. He feeds off it. I was his companion for years Rose. I endured his presence in my head for **years**. I could sense…that he was starving… For years I satiated him with my capacity for magic, slowly, over the course of decades, until I became incapable of wielding it myself."_

All through childhood, Rose recalled that Uncle Harry had grown progressively weaker.

 **Why did you let him feed on you?**

"Yes, Potter. Do tell, why?"

 _"I wasn't prepared to kill others for him."_

"You mean that you were young, foolish, and had no conception of the creature's power." 

_"No, I mean that I wanted to protect everyone that I could. I'd rather he fed on me than anyone else…_ _Rose, are you beginning to understand what's at stake here?"_

She was yanked out of the memory, back to reality, sitting across from her Uncle in the darkened cavern. The ghost of Tom Riddle was gone and the physical presence of Harry Potter alone was jarring. Flakes of ice lingered in the air and she wrapped her arms tighter around herself. For no good reason she felt herself start to weep again. Through her tears, she saw Harry sitting in a similar pool of isolation, weathered lines etching on his forehead as he watched her, as if waiting for her to speak.

"I don't understand… entirely." Her breath left her body in frightened shivers. "So why does this… Cygnus…why does Cygnus want so much _chaos_?"

"He feeds off a very specific kind of chaos. The death of _magical_ _lives_ is what sustains him. He's been starving for _centuries_ …. Magic…is what he seeks to devour." Harry leant in. "Are you beginning to understand what's at stake now?"

Rose shook her head.

"Magic, Rose. _Magic_. The very existence of magic is at stake here. The future of everything that you know. Your ability to wield it….do you know what happens when the ability for magic is torn from the being of a wizard?"

"They die," she offered fearfully, and was devastated when Harry nodded. "Is that what happened to my parents?"

"When they found out what was happening, what I was doing…they wanted to help—" he broke off. "When the creature found out, he got to them. I'm sorry…It's what he does, he takes from you what you love most—"

"That's when you disappeared," Rose cut in. She felt numb. "After he killed my parents, you disappeared. You came here…to this fortress you spent years building."

"He'd been the one to set Tom Riddle on his path. And then he had used me to kill him… I became the next in his long line of manipulations…I knew the day would come when Cygnus decided he was done with me too—I had to be prepared for when it happened. There are charms around this cavern—back from when I could still cast charms—but the second I step out of my fortress, he'll have no trouble finding me." The torchlights at the ends of the cavern flickered. "Do you see why I needed Albus to be the way he is?"

She swallowed, too afraid to respond.

"You see, Rose, my son...is different from you and me. He could never manage in a normal reality," Harry gave an imploring look, willing for her to understand. "But, in chaos. Albus _thrives_ in chaos."

This did not come as a shock. For the longest time, life had been jumping from one violent crisis to another without pause, without time to reflect and process emotions. It had been _torturous_ for Rose but her cousin – aside from a few hiccups – had handled the aftermath of these moments with a near-sadistic efficiency.

"Was he…was he born like that?"

"Albus was born with a high natural intelligence, like his namesake. But the emotional world was always confusing to him, so very frustrating…I did not want him to suffer because of it. I needed him to be strong, competent…in case anything happened to me… I needed him to have …rigid control over his violent desires—even as a child, Albus had a _terrible_ capacity for violence."

This brought on a whole slew of ugly memories. "I know." Her shoulders flinched. "It got really bad after you disappeared. His control started slipping...he had no problem killing."

"I'm sorry," Harry said, sincerely. "If he ever hurt you, I'm really sorry."

"Losing him hurt me most of all," she whispered, and saw a sad smile flit Harry's face. "I don't care about the rest anymore… I just want him to be _ok_."

"I appreciate you saying that, Rose…he was lucky to have a sister in you."

"It's not just that."

An uncomfortable pause settled.

"It's been there for years." Her voice wavered. "The other…" she broke off, shaking her head miserably. "And when I thought he died I felt so _broken_ … I hated him for leaving me behind, I thought he did it to punish me—he can be so _selfish_ when he wants to—I didn't understand what I was—" Her voice caught again.

Harry was quiet then, staring at her in the dimness of the light.

"And I feel so much shame," she confessed in a whisper, "I want to get better, I promise I do, and I _can't_. I've tried others. And I just _can't_ —" she looked up, tears in her eyes. "Do you know what I mean?"

Harry gave an alarmed blink. "No," he said, loudly and firmly. It was the voice one used with a child. "No, I don't know what you mean. And I don't _want_ to."

Her cheeks burned. She ducked her head, staring determinedly at her snow boots, wishing she'd nothing at all.

The flames from the hearth emanated warmth. The crackle of fire separated itself from the din of storm and forest and echoed through the cavern and inside her mind.

Bones—as if a set of invisible knuckles —banged inside her head.

 _Well, well. Hello there, Rose...what an interesting mind you have._

She shivered. Voldemort was still inside her brain?

"Cygnus is a creature who's been sustained by magical deaths," Harry continued. "Magic is his life force. It took me a while to realize it, but when I met him, he wasn't in top form. His soul was fragmented. It limited his abilities…. I never found the real stone, but I was able to create a replica to trick him—of course, he instantly knew it was fake but I was able to confuse just long enough to…. bind his being to a shack that I built."

Bile rose in her throat. "Oh god."

"Rose!"

Harry moved quickly, grabbing her shoulders as she lurched forward, ready to heave.

"Uncle Harry, I let…I destroyed the shack."

Harry's eyes widened. "What do you mean you destroyed—"

"We found the shack when we were looking for you. There was a noise…I couldn't hear it but it was hurting Al and Scorpius, and I just had to—I destroyed it with fiendfyre. Oh god."

"And I did something much worse too." She squeezed her eyes. "I let his soul cross back."

"I—how did you—?"

"It's a long story," she shuddered. "I bridged the realms of the living and the dead. I did the thing you're not supposed to do. Am I…am I responsible for all this?"

She could feel Tom Riddle sifting through her thoughts like a diary, reading the memory of the burning shack…Hugo's resurrection…. Her impossible guilt…. he must've known that she'd never be able to shake off it off now. Now, nothing would ever atone her. She could've sworn the previous Dark Lord whispered:

 _What a tragic little girl you are._

"This isn't your fault," Harry assured, voice earnest. "All the shack did was slow Cygnus down for a while. Even when he was bound to it, even when his soul was fragmented…he still held _incomparable_ power. I knew that the shack wouldn't hold him forever."

"I—ok." She nodded, although the answer did not placate her. She whispered: "So what did you do with the real stone?"

"I knew my time was coming to an end. My capacity for magic was waning. I knew eventually Cygnus would have someone kill me just… like he'd had me kill Tom…. I'd grown weak…I had no time to find the stone but I'd gotten close…I left my notes for the next dark lord to find, hoping he would continue my work, or at least, keep it out of Cygnus' hands."

"The next dark lord? Who—"

It dawned. Graham Paisley was the current dark lord. Graham Paisley had the stone.

"I have to go." Without thinking, her legs lifted and she was standing, wand out.

"Wait a minute—" Harry pulled at her arm, yanking her back down.

"Not yet Rose...There is something about you…within you. Something that worries me."

She stared back at inspecting green eyes.

"It's different than the pull of dark magic." Harry's brow knit in concern. "I sense...an echo?"

 _As do I..._

"You make connections through magic easily, don't you? It resonates with those who travel with you. Your actions affect others more than you know. You draw people to you, especially those strong in magic. They follow you without question, without hesitation…sometimes against their sense. Is this true?"

Rose was stunned for words.

It was similar, perhaps, to what the Head had sensed in her, long ago. He took her in because he sensed this ability…to lead. To be a great leader. But all she could think about was Kovy and Cynthia and to some degree Florian….and Scorpius…her friends…. they'd all been so willing to follow her into danger. What about the countless mobs of people vying after the Ressurectionist? Was she enabling something so very dark in the hearts of people? Did that make her responsible for all their lives?

"There's an echo... I sensed it when you came into the cavern but I wasn't sure…" Harry drew closer and the air in her lungs disappeared…her eyes grew blurry….and she knew her brain was being infiltrated once more, her memories…memories of the massacre she had the caused in Diagon Alley…what had happened in Little Norton…all the blood that was on the Resurrectionist's hands…how could the promise of life have brought _so much death?_

"Ah…there it is…." Behind vaults and ciphers resided the memory Rose had painstakingly locked away, even from herself….The memory of crossing the barriers of time and space, of reason…it had been utter madness when she crossed the realm of living into the dead….the Other realm… to retrieve her brother's soul—as Harry, along with the ghost of Riddle, delved deeper and deeper within her brain, Rose was reminded of facts she'd never wanted to think about again —she could feel the pair tearing away at her mental barricades, so that she could remember once more, so very clearly—the piercing, ear-splitting shrieks of millions of lost souls in the Other realm-next thing she knew, she was on the ground, clasping at her ears straining, crying and pleading, _begging_ for the abominablenoises to stop—

Harry pulled her out of the reverie, yanking her off the floor and into his arms. He held her close, steady.

"It is a surprise you didn't die there, Rose... in the realm of the dead. The screams of so many…muggle and wizard…to cling to your senses over such pain, it's not possible for any wizard to endure."

For a moment, she hung limp in his arms. The very sense of the familiarity of her Uncle's warmth was alienating…she pulled herself closer to him, wrapping her arms around his neck as if to obtain warmth. He held her like a troubled child, and spoke quietly into her ear.

"You cut yourself off from magic, didn't you? When you were on the other side."

Tears filled her eyes again. "I-" the words choked coming out of her mouth. Had been concious of the fact she had done cut herself off from magic? Of course not. She had done so instinctually—because she had to if she wanted to survive. That was how she brought Hugo back, how she managed what no one wizard in the world has ever managed before.

"It nearly killed you, didn't it?" Harry uttered, somberly. "And when you returned, you felt that suffering again at the massacre in Diagon Alley…Little Norton too… You were deafened."

 _At last, you could hear_. Riddle's whisper-hiss carved through her brain, sharp like a knife.

"You were broken"

 _My child..._ _You were whole_

"You were blinded"

 _And at last, you saw._

"You carry all those deaths you have caused close to you, and it has created a hole…a hole that cannot be filled. It's a hunger, Rose. It's the same hunger Cygnus carries, and in time, it might consume you in the same way it has him...You need to be careful."

"Careful? What do you mean?"

"What if other wizards crossed into the realm of the dead like you did? Suffered the same events and emerged? What if there was a crucible that trained wizards in this type of magic? For you, Hugo's death _was_ that crucible...What's worse is the threat that we face. I fear that Cygnus has learned the lesson of war and Death all too well. It's what allows him to feed on magic, to prey on it as he does. He is a threat to all living creatures that wield magic. You can't become like him. Your ability to make such connections, such bonds so easily is why you have to be careful. You can't hurt others...You have a great capacity to do so."

 _What you must learn is to harness this capacity._ Tom Riddle whispered again. Rose hated his silky voice; it filtered through her head, sliding and slipping around her thoughts. There was something eerily seductive about it, the way all his syllables were laden with power that came after decades of experience.

 _I can teach you how._

 _Get out of my head_ , Rose thought back angrily. She scratched harder at her hair, as if to alleviate the itch.

 _Foolish girl…_

 _How can you ever hope to know the threat you face, when you have never walked in true darkness?_

 _You cannot survive against Cygnus unless you understand the power he wields._

Before she could offer a rebuttal, her comlink crackled, and Florian's anxious voice flit the cavern chamber:

 _"Weasley! They've started bombing the settlement!"_

Shit, shit, shit. All her priorities shifted at once.

"Has everyone been evacuated?" She spoke into the comlink.

 _"We're trying our best! We're going to need help. Head down as soon as you can."_

She glanced over at Harry, brow terse. "I have to go now. But I'll be back…there's still so much I need to know."

This time, her uncle made no effort to stop her. "Stay safe." He nodded. "Do what you need to. Return here when you've finished."

She nodded and made to leave.

"Wait!" Something struck her; she turned back around. "If Al's somewhere out there…" Her voice was pinched. "Where do you imagine I'd find him?"

Harry gave a look of dismay.

"If the creature's found him, Albus isn't safe for you to be around…He needs to do this alone."

"The _last_ thing Al needs to be is alone. He needs—" she broke off, embarrassed. "He needs me," she whispered. "I need him too."

"Don't confuse need with want, Rose."

"Can I say it outloud then?"

Harry stared.

"You're…confused," he tried, carefully, before breaking off with a frustrated sigh. "I—It won't matter anyway—Albus can't understand…Believe me, he's far better without the burden of such things—"

"I already know how _cold_ and _stubborn_ he is," she seethed. "I know he's an unwavering arsehole who won't let anyone near. I just need to know— _Can_ he?"

Though there was no wind, a chill passed through the chamber.

"I don't know," Harry whispers. "But don't—"

She turned and fled, ignoring his shouts after him.

.

Given the orange color of the cumulonimbus clouds stretching across the darkening sky, Rose sensed there was something more sinister at bay than snow or rain.

Burning smattering of pinpoint dots came, only to be followed shortly thereafter by fatter, more intrusive dots that were bursting with scorching water.

"Fuck!"

Legs raced, making fast strides under a canopy of trees.

 _There's something you must understand about the creature, Rose._

 _He might be a beast of magic, but he doesn't love it._

 _He doesn't care for it the way Potter and you….and I… might._

It was the voice of Voldemort—the deceased Dark Lord was stuck like a burrowed weight in her brain.

Rose slid down a slope of slippery snow, scratching furiously at her hair to make it go away.

It was impossible to configure Tom Riddle's true expression underneath the serpentine visage of apathy, but there was a sliver of…something, in his tone, that told Rose this quest wasn't solely a past-time for the deceased wizard.

Panting, still heading towards the settlement, she made fast strides through trees, trees, hundreds of frozen trees, as Riddle's voice reverberated through her mind.

 _The stone is something Cygnus wants to devour—it will only satiate him…it's **food** …_

 _But Potter and I knew that no wizard in his right mind would let harm come to magic, certainly not a dark lord._

 _Potter assumes his son can finish what he started._

"And you…don't?" she panted, coming to halt as she knelt upon knees to rest.

Voldemort didn't address her directly. _Potter imprinted the idea of the stone in his son's memory._

 _The son needed to have some sort of recollection of it, so that he'd recognize it when he saw the real one._

 _You may well know that those memories we form as children stay with us for the rest of our lives…_

"Why are you telling me all this?"

 _The son needed to be able to comprehend what was at stake._

 _Potter gave him many memories that…instilled him with a sense of purpose. He had to know just enough…. but never too much._ _The creature can sense your thoughts…but the son would be safe from him so long as he had nothing to lose._

 _So long as nothing compromised his ability to think rationally_

 _Nothing and **no one**. _

There it was.

 _Ignorance._ _It was the great gift Potter gave to his son._ _Ignorance, along with a grand sense of purpose._ _So that the only thing that mattered to the boy was magic and magic alone, and to preserve it… he must do whatever it takes…_

 _He must be willing to die…._

 _Potter trusts you not to compromise this, Rose Weasley._

Even in her mind, Riddle's red eyes looked opaque—it was impossible to know what was meant beneath the layers of ominous words. It was odd phrasing, to imply that she had enough influence over her cousin to—sway him? Possibly in her direction? Perhaps the previous Dark Lord had sensed that there was something...more between the cousins than a mutual obsession with dark magic. And Tom Riddle was slippery and conniving in ways that her uncle wasn't, so Rose knew that she'd been issued a threat, rather than a warning.

"I won't let Al die for this grand scheme his dad has," she panted, eyes narrowed, breath visible in the frigid cold. "It's fucked up."

 _Indeed..._

 _Hmm...'Fucked up' — what interesting colloquisms this generation has..._

 _I agree with you Rose, it is 'fucked up'..._

"You do?"

Tom Riddle offered a tilted smile.

 _I've decided._ _I'm going to come with you_ , Rose.

"What?"

 _Potter has been reduced to a muggle and driven into hiding…_

 _He cannot leave his fortress for fear of persecution by Cygnus_

 _But **I** can_

 _I am a non-entity in this realm, able to pass as a mere shadow._

 _You will need my expertise if you intend to kill…this placeholder dark lord._

 _That is, before your dearest cousin does._

After a moment of stunned silence: "What's the catch?" She felt suspicious—rightly so—of Tom Riddle's motives. "You're dead. Just what could you possibly have to gain from helping me?"

The burdensome weight in her brain disappeared, and Voldemort appeared before her in a physical manifestation, a looming, silvery ghost.

Rose came to sudden halt, staring:

He was no longer the hideously serpentine creature Rose had seen before, whose humanity had been long eroded by dark magic.

Instead he was the picture of youth—the dark hair, handsome features, and dull eyes all bore an unnerving semblance to Albus Potter's.

Voldemort's new, eerily young face betrayed no emotion.

"It's quite simple really. I help you save your cousin's life. And in return, you resurrect mine."

.

This was the game—in all its glory—it was the same dance Albus had endured since the advent of his magic. He was to play the child, the acolyte, reliant on those with more power. During childhood, his father had been this figure, both mentor and prime obstacle. _Control yourself._ He had always been advised by the man. Control, control, always control—for what good was control besides slowing one down at pivotal moments?

But this was his place, even at age twenty-one, because somehow, he was still under the thumb of a father. Only at this point in his ascent, "Father" was a madman who had no business calling himself a wizard.

The grand halls spanning the insides of Paisley's fortress were as gloomy as the meteorological conditions outside, as darkened clouds of smokes and debris loomed over the settlement that was currently being ravaged by the magical bombs. Large windows spanned the castle walls, and if one were to glance outside, they would see in fullness the looming height at which the dark fortress stood atop the precariously sloped mountain.

The Call of the Void was one of the strangest phenomena of the human mind…Albus found himself fascinated by it—whether it was that fleeting urge to just— _jump_ off a tall height…or the distinct realization that if he opened the windows, he could easily slip out and down—crack his head….it was a common part of the human mind, one that all endured, as far as he knew, but when it came, he was always caught a bit surprised by it…In this instance, his eyes lingered on the frozen icicles that adorned Paisley's palace like botanical flowers. They were large enough that he could fling himself against them and they wouldn't shatter—he cursed his analytical mind…even in his suicidal flashes, he was too clever to let himself feel the tremor of fear he was meant to have. His mind replayed a familiar moment—stumbling through a graveyard of fears—he'd stopped hexing his doppelganger when his wand-hand began to hurt—a mistake…He should have kicked—he should have stomped and gnawed until the mass ceased thrashing…He remembered the heat of his cousin's panicked body in his hands—the way her body writhed…the way her voice broke as she screamed.

And now, she was in danger once more. Where his brain stumbled to process the most recent magical catastrophic, Rose was already enacting a plan—a stupid one, of course. She always did stupid better than him.

It was quite unfortunate for Albus that his cousin had tendency to get caught up in futile goals...saving lives...pointless heroism. He knew Rose wasn't clever enough to avoid danger even when she could perceive it...she would plunge face-first into fire without another thought...

And so.

.

All movement in the halls ceased as 'Evans', flanked by tall guards, was escorted to the throne of the Crime-Lord.

Graham Paisley was dressed in ornate, expensive furs today. He sat sniffing a streak of ivory—cocaine power—off the sheath of his knife.

Hands and feet in chains, Albus was dropped in front of the drug-addled man.

He made sure to kneel into a very low, humbling bow.

Paisley remained inattentive to the gesture at first, though, slowly, a fissured grin curled across his face.

A disturbingly long snort of cocaine followed.

After, he finally spoke.

"Learned your lesson, Evans? They beat the shit out of you?"

Albus swallowed the urge to snarl, forcing civility into his voice.

"My comment was…mistaken. A lapse of judgement."

"Go on," Paisely coaxed, the smirk in his voice evident.

Albus stiffened.

"I shouldn't have called you a parasite," he muttered. "Forgive me."

"Not nice to call people names, Evans. Shame your mother never taught you."

Albus kept his body knelt low so that the violent anger that flickered across his face couldn't be spotted.

"We should remained allied, Graham. Let me help you," he said, his voice level.

"Help me?" came a drawl. "Just how do you plan to do that?"

"I've been practicing magic longer than you," Albus responded matter-of-factly. "I expect, with no offence, that I have a better intuitive understanding. I could help you figure out how to use the Stone to its full capacity…Together, we could use it to take down Cygnus…"

With a raise of the head, Albus spotted an expression of amused suspicion. Paisley didn't look entirely convinced by his offer— but he was no doubt intrigued—You could see it in the way those manic eyes flit over 'Evans'.

Probing. Dissecting. Deciding.

Paisley lusted for more power, this was quite clear. What's more, he understood the Stone was key—Albus was well aware that his expertise would be needed, in one way or another…he had been deliberate enough to make himself an asset.

Still—

"But why, Evans, would I trust someone like you with my dearest possession? You don't even like me very much. What exactly have you done to prove yourself my friend?"

It was odd phrasing. Odd sentiment. While caught off-guard, Albus didn't question it.

"I can be your... friend, Graham. Let me prove it."

"Hm?" The Crime-Lord probed, though he hadn't needed to, because Albus's gaze had drifted to the windows, down the mountain, to the scattered panic flitting the settlement at its base.

"The aurors are making things difficult for you down there, aren't they?"

"They're certainly trying to," Paisley said, in a toneless voice, boredly flicking his knife back and forth. "It is the fault of that damned Ressurectionist…I'll be sending men to kill her shortly here."

"Send me instead."


	30. Wait

Smoke wafted in the frozen mountainlands. Colors clashed in the air, piercing the dark-purplish sky. It was the whiplash of a dying settlement.

Panicked voices overlapped on her crackling commlink.

 _"—Rose! Are you there? Rose—"_ "

 _"—we failed—"_

 _"—it's hopeless, all so hopeless—"_

 _"—we're leading a trail of survivors up to the mountains—"_

 _"—don't go_ _ **down there**_ _—"_

It was too late to turn back. Smoke and debris obscured her vision as she raced down a precipitous snowy slope, half-skidding, coming to a sharp halt at the large gates of FORT AUGUSTUS. She shoved her way inside past fallen blocks of stone and her stomach swallowed her heart.

The air was heavy with pollution. Flames everywhere, licking along the beaten houses, caved-in buildings, their outsides scorched by the bombings they'd been unable to prevent. Heaving scraps of metal and other construction material laid strewn across the snowy, ashen ground. Specks of debris from broken windows fettered in the air.

Charred corpses littered across broken pavement as far as the eye could see.

The carnage of amassed human heads and limbs was truly horrific, still fleshy-faces scorched by flame, blood dried over their mouths and smeared over their pallid chins and necks. Dark, hollowed eyes.

It was genocide.

Devils everywhere…It was a Faustian world… and Rose had too many deals fraying her soul. Hardly could she recall a time there was not someone trying to kill her or destroy everything she knew… or whisper slippery ideas into her ear. And she knew—for all her distraught confusion—that her newest ear-whisperer was _frighteningly_ skilled at this game.

 _What a shiny mind you have…Sweet child...New…Fresh…So very… Malleable_

Rose squeezed her eyes. "Not now," she pleaded under her breath.

 _You can do much more…A witch with talents like yours…You are far from helpless…_

For all the carnage that surrounded her in that very moment, his words—soft, feathery—cocooned her like a warm blanket.

 _Let me help…I can guide you so well…I have been in this spot…_

Allying with the ghost of Tom Riddle was a criminally dangerous act even if Rose had the unfortunate habit of living her life by such acts. To trust the deceased Dark Lord felt like a grave offense to her parents, to everything she knew…. But in the face of a greater evil…An evil so unfathomable she could hardly wrap her head around it, an evil that threatened the _existence of magic_ …In split-second haste…What choice did she have?

"Don't try to control me, Tom…there are plenty to do that." Her frozen breath floated like a prayer. "Please… help me kill Graham Paisley…Please?"

 _Certainly, my dear girl._

 _._

A blazing enchantment shot through the smoke, carving her flesh as it shot by. Blood dribbled from the long gash over her shoulder and collarbone, neatly slicing through her snowsuit.

She whirled around to face the darkened corner of a warehouse.

A heavily-tattooed man emerged from the shadows. He wore a wide, unhinged smile.

"Well, evenin' Ressurectionist. Hard girl to kill, aren't ya?"

She returned a hard stare.

An frightful noise reverberated from the man's mouth—Jeering, insane laughter. It was the first time in Rose's life that she felt—not scared—but _angry_. Her legs trembled and her grip around her wand ached and she…hungered? For something. She couldn't justify it or perhaps she didn't want to. Inside her mind, the unfurling of poison fangs…her serpentine companion was as hungry as she…He could feel what she felt and—

"Did you enjoy our little spectacle?" Loud cackling.

The Crow spread out his arms, gesturing to the bloody wreckage around them.

"A thousand lives in smoke, in a matter of a night. How does it feel to let so people down, Ressurectionist?"

 _You are upset_ , Riddle's voice slithered into her brain. _He is a worthless life._

The response came instantaneously. Her arm raised to aim a wand and shoot a vicious beam of green narrowly into her assailant's chest. Green godly light which, she felt, could only be delivered by an agent of justice. If resurrecting a life was sacrilege… then taking a life could only be blessed liberation. Right? When it came to it—It didn't matter to Rose if she was good or bad or wrong or right…only that she survived long enough to salvage this mission.

A bodily thud as the Crow's body collapsed, swallowed into the mass wreckage of ruined bodies. The line between criminal and collateral seemed too hazy now.

 _Not quite so lacking in killer instinct, I see._

 _Good girl._

She jabbed her wand at her shoulder wound and muttered a charm that partially healed her cut.

Reds and blues mingled with the frozen air. Flames danced among rubble as she dashed between trodden buildings, looking for survivors. The ash of destroyed bodies swept away with the blisteringly fierce wind. She drew long, desperate draughts of contaminated air, wheezing, gripping her wand so tightly her knuckles ached. Amidst so much death, she scouted for life. A sliver of hope. It was the only thought rattling in her skull.

.

The walls of the house had been crumbled and in their place stood thick beams of wood, blackened and charred from where the flames had licked at them. The ruins were still smoking and she could see the faintest glow of embers as she maneuvered around the creaking threshold, searching for the faint cries she had heard earlier.

A child, trapped beneath wreckage.

She shuffled her way through strewn rubbish before casting an enchantment which lifted away the giant intruding blocks obfuscating the floor. A small waifling was excavated, a girl of no more than 5 years old.

A quick check of pulse—still alive. A wave of relief washed through Rose.

She was unconscious. Her hair and most of the clothing had been singed off, leaving her half-naked, but the burns weren't bad enough to have killed her, thankfully. Rose wrapped the limp girl in a warm blanket, then doubled it with a charm that created a heating bubble, and at last strapped the child along her back for easier carrying. With that, Rose began to move.

Sparse flame still burned the streets, smoke cloyed and furled to create a perpetual smog. Black dust hung in the air and invaded her lungs as she ran.

 _"Rose—!"_

"I'm on my way," she panted into her commlink, which was still buzzing with disjointed chatter, before staring up at the intimidatingly steep pathway curling into the mountains.

.

There was nothing that could make one feel so elevated and yet so insignificant as traveling along mountains. They rose like mighty jagged teeth from the earth, creviced to perfection, sculpted by the storms and the winters.

Frigid temperatures stiffened her legs on the upward trek; Each successive step harder to take. Lashes froze and clumped, obsuring vision. Residual smoke, from the attacks, lingered in the air, preventing the sight of anything more than a few paces ahead. Her mind imagined a warm, dark hollow in which the aurors were congregated safely with the other survivors—yes…everyone was warm and huddled together around a brightly lit fire…fed…sleeping…She yearned for food, for blankets… a warm place to lay down.

A blistering surge of wind blew by.

"Tom."

 _…. yes?_

Her teeth chattered inside her skull. "Talk to me, please."

 _What falsely consoling words can I provide you at this time, child?_

"Anything...Tell me…about the Stone. What does it do?"

 _Anything you can imagine._

"That doesn't help. Tell me something helpful."

 _It is not difficult to understand…To harness the power of the Stone is to wield all magic in the palm of your hand…You can magnify it, bend it to your will…It is a formidable weapon, in every sense of the word._

"And if it gets destroyed by Cygnus? We lose magic forever?"

 _Yes…That is the assumption_

"Assumption?" Her mouth released smoky air.

 _The stone has never been destroyed…And it shall never be._

"Is there no way to repair it?"

 _Not if magic is lost to the world._

"Then…How was the Stone _made?"_

Tom seemed to clamp up.

 _This is not the time for a history lesson, child. Eyes ahead._

Steps felt endless as the dreary path grew wide where the snow was soft and then narrow in the frozen rocky passes. There were times it was no more than a mild disturbance in the dirt. But always, it led upward to the peak, the only destination she had in mind.

A cleaver flung through the air, clearing the smoke into two continents. At once, Rose hurled herself to the side.

The edge of the cleaver struck into snow.

Panting, Rose stared at her assailant. It was a man. A Crow, of enormous stature. His skin was patterned in streaks of blood—a haunting revelation in that it meant he had joyously slaughtered many other lives tonight. His beard was snarled into bright thatches of coagulation; even the circles around his large, glassy eyes were tinted red.

With a slack-jawed grin that was half his face, he said not a single word. He did not need to. This was not a man following his boss's order, carrying out the egregious task of mass slaughter with a heavy heart. No, this was a man who enjoyed it; He was out for the thrill of the kill.

Her hand twisted around her wand.

Without warning, the Crow dove at her, grabbing, shoving at her fiercely after detaching the young girl Rose had secured to the back. Rose kneeled on the ground, panting. The child was taken, held limply in the curl of the Crow's bicep—he reached into his pockets and brought out a knife, bringing it to the child's slim neck. A taunt.

Eyes narrowed, Rose grabbed the cleaver from the snow.

She found herself amid a wash of mixed thoughts at the standstill—some part of her longed to punish—She'd have to risk the death of another innocent child, but it would work if she had time to knock the knife loose.

She stood up and was dumbstruck to immediately dodge the knife tossed at her.

The crash of her body into snow again came—but it was not until she saw the first real sight of harm coming to the girl that Rose's mind suddenly became very alert. She buckled against the ground—and just as quickly, that hooded man squeezed at the windpipe of small girl, fist tightening crudely, veins of his arm pulsing. Rose found her rage, her stupid, unguided rage—she'd only come to the realization then that she was clenching her aching hand as the cleaver swung wildly. She wasn't a murderer, not like these Crows—but she jumped and swung—slashed and gnawed—desperate to hit whatever part of the Crow's body that she could. Unfortunately for Rose, this assailant was not inexperienced—the sudden vertigo of being flung back by his other arm left Rose awkwardly toppling across a plain of snow.

Rose heard a snap—and if it was bone, she would never be sure...her knuckles were so very white, a ghost of the girl that knew better than to let another be in a spot like she was—a phantasm of hatred billowed out putrid smog in a scream that popped her ears and burned her throat…She grabbed the cleaver again—She swung—swung like she didn't care if her rotary cuff permanently tore from the sheer force of it—The metal sounded resoundingly across the center of the rear of the Crow's head, so violently that Rose immediately felt her hands screaming in surprise at the sudden impact—the broken away wood of the weapon clattered into the ground—the metal latched against skull-bone—the Crow—crumbled, buckling like a curtain to the ground in a heap overtop the child.

Murder. Cold-blooded. It was worth it, in every alternate universe, in every timeline, in every moment of her life

"Fuck you!" Rose didn't even hear herself—she hexed at the Crow again...again...again. Until she could no longer be certain if she were doing so to ensure the man was dead or if she was simply taking out her spite...when her arms shook and her hands were no longer capable of holding onto her wand, Rose hurriedly pushed at the man sobbing. The child was nonresponsive—bloody...

Dead.

 _My girl…these lives mean nothing—_

"Not now, Tom."

She was a bloodied mess on her own, her right hand was a crumpled mess of bruised skin and likely broken knuckles...she shook from the drop off in adrenaline...and as her beaten eyes fell upon nearing march of cloaks...More Crows…Many many more…She felt her heart turn...

A hex toward her flew through the torrid air—Her stomach dropped.

At once, it was intercepted by a bright red charm.

She released a clenched breath. Blearily she gazed up at the mountains, from where the charm had flown in, squinting against the sunlight.

It was…She blinked in disbelief.

 _So it is..._

The blink turned into a gawk. Mouth dropping, Rose stared at the figure in a dazed, confused horror.

In a black cloak, he stood tall, calm, lean, that face still as handsomely stoic as ever. The dark brow was etched in focus, but he wasn't looking at her—No, his sharp gaze was fixed upon the approaching Crows.

 _I suspect he is here to do Cygnus' bidding—to kill this new, rather inconvenient dark lord._

With a rush of wind and momentum, he floated down the mountain, gliding onto the level pathway in a majestic entrance befitting a twisted angel.

His towering form landed directly in front of her, as if to shield.

"Oi jerk," she hissed. He didn't hear her, busy watching the Crows.

In what was the most incredulous detail of all in this strange visual, Albus Potter did not have his wand out.

Wind howled over the frozen terrain.

"Just what the hell you doin?" A Crow piped against the noise. "If Paisley finds out you're fucking about down here—"

"Stand down," Albus cut him off. His words were not harsh; Rather, they were said with jurisdiction, as if he expected them to obey.

A unanimous confusion passed amid the Crows. They looked among each other, wary, trying to figure out what was going on. It was clear from this action that the Crows had some arrangement with Albus, an arrangement which he was now blatantly betraying.

What happened next was testament to the efficiency of a well-oiled machine. Without a single word yet with near-simultaneous precision, the hooded figures lifted their wands, aiming them onto Albus.

He did not even flinch.

"And why would we listen to you, boy? What authority do you have?"

Heart pounding against ribcage, she witnessed as the gloved fingers on her cousin's wand-hand curled.

He replied, with frightening calm:

"I have the authority to kill you all."

There was no moment of reprieve.

Hexes fired at once, bright venomous spells tinged with noxious fumes blazed through the air, torpedoing towards her cousin.

He didn't dodge, didn't move. Rather casually, he lifted an arm. A simple raise of a gloved-hand was enough to cast a large, all-encompassing shield which blocked every spell that shot their way with a careless ease. It was—beyond arrogance—it was—

 _Wandless magic…So he has been training under Cygnus…_

An equally arrogant raise of the other hand and silvery enchantments erupted from the shield. Whatever this advanced, crazed form of magic was…Rose had never seen it before. Had never learned it, read it in a book.

She could nearly picture his smirk.

A series of new flashes broke out as her cousin waved his hand again, scattering incandescent radioactive gasses, and then a great gush of energy rose from the shield - the third wave of utter destruction.

A blast of flame. It spread, in a lateral sheet, at near a couple thousand feet annihilating everything in its path.

The act of magic cutting through flesh detonated something at the back of her head; as flame spread, she felt her brain thud against the plates of her skull.

A sudden gush of smoke jolted Rose into a coughing fit.

Then it ended.

The smoke and fumes dissipated, and all that remained of the Crows were corpses.

A silent concealing charm was cast over the bodies, by her cousin. Likely so that he would not leave a trail of blood in his wake.

After finishing, he finally turned around.

Rose stared at the face of her cousin. She had not yet closed her mouth, nor bothered to move an inch off the ground.

"What the fuck," she said incredulously, finally standing. "Where the _hell_ have you—"

"Been busy," he dismissed.

Rose only continued to gawk.

"I can see that."

This made him shuffle about. Surely he didn't think 'Busy' was an acceptable answer, but Rose didn't press on that very moment. All she could focus on was the green of his eyes and how far away he stood and just how necessary it was to bridge that distance

As if unsure how to proceed, Albus cleared his throat.

"So how've you been Rose Pose?"

"Er." Bloodied, freezing, hair in disarray, she gave a wince as she cast a healing charm to restore her rotary cuff, along with whatever else that needed restoring.

"Could be better, I guess."

The thousand little pains running down her body seemed dulled for a moment as she stared back at Albus. Still stupefied by the fact he was in front of her, in the flesh.

"Everyone is still trying to kill you," he noted. "You haven't improved your habits in the slightest." His tone had a certain amount of resignation.

"Oh don't patronize, jerk…I missed you."

There it was: A smirk.

"Cm'here."

.

Cold stalked them through the mountain passes like a specter of death, the bitter wind tearing right to her chest and turned her blood to icy sludge. Her muscles ached and grinded like the cogs in an old machine. Albus stalked beside her, as disaffected as ever, footsteps crunching snow; his hand firmly gripped her arm to ensure that she remained steady.

"Congratulations, Rosie. To add to your collection, Graham Paisley now wants you dead too."

This wasn't news. She puffed in cold draughts of air.

"Stop changing the subject," she huffed. "You _disappeared_. You let me think you were dead… What kind of arsehole does that? And more importantly— _why?_ "

Annoyance flit his features. "Why does that matter right now?"

"Because you and me—" She broke off. "It just matters, okay?"

"I see that your priorities are as skewed as ever," he said dryly.

"Maybe. Who else have I got?"

Albus gave an odd raise of the brows, before staring up at the mountains. "A legion of aurors. I hope."

Even the commlink to her only lifeline, her auror-rescue team had fallen victim to the silence of the coldness. In a wasteland of white, there was nothing for their minds to hang onto, no familiar sights, no sound other than the howling, even the light they needed to warm them has waning and was no match for the wind. Only the hearts beating in their chest stopped them from become as frozen as the landscape, and when Rose whirled around to see the tracks they had made, there were none.

The fading of sunlight meant the fading of heat. They found a small cavern, a hole-in-the-wall opening to take shelter. It was dark, snow was falling again, and they had no choice but to stay until the light returned.

Within the excruciating darkness, her breath was only visible under the sporadic flames of the fire they had started. It cast shadows along the dirt walls and illuminated the restless silhouette of her cousin.

At times, she would find herself slinking into unconsciousness, to snap awake with a particularly loud crackle of the lit flames. She'd wake to find Albus pacing back and forth, the wheels in his head churning. What could he have been pondering at such a time…Rose had no conception of time, really. She began to lose sense of it in frigid isolation, had she been dozing for minutes or hours?

From all that she had learned from Harry—she felt a strange pang of knowing—Albus was to become the next dark lord in Cygnus's chain—it was something she had to prevent...somehow…she had to save her cousin from himself…

Afraid that he might try to slip out without telling her, she sat upright…Against her will, her eyes began to feel heavy again.

"How many men did you bring?" The sudden query jolted her into consciousness.

She shivered from the cold, folding arms over her chest. "There are only twenty-four of us."

Albus stared at her, his pale face slowly growing incensed.

"Who planned the logistics of this idiotic attack?" he snapped.

"The Head."

"Then he deserves to be executed," he said sharply. He paced, with anger in his step. "You do realize that this mission of yours is—"

"Suicide?" she finished for him. With a dejected sigh, she wrapped her arms tighter around herself, pulling her coat close and tucking her chin downward into her pullover. "It was never supposed to get this bad. We were supposed to intercept Paisley before the bombings happened," she shuddered.

"The Department of Law Enforcement should be prepared for anything. My father would have been."

Rose did not respond to the comment about Harry Potter.

"We're overextended…Attacks are happening everywhere…there just wasn't enough manpower…doesn't matter. I was supposed to do better," she whispered, a hollow note to her voice. "Nobody was supposed to die."

Albus watched her with an odd, but not unkind, expression.

He waited a beat of a second before asking. "Where's Scorp?"

Again, Rose did not respond or meet his querying stare.

"You should have brought him. Malfoy is an invaluable accomplice….I'm disappointed at how poorly thought-out this all was."

Guilt burned in the pit of her belly, and all she could do was bury her head into her palms.

She gave a heavy-hearted sigh.

She heard shuffling, and at once an arm wrapped her waist, a warm weight settling into the blankets beside her. A kiss pressed into her hair—Albus was, without much warning, holding her now. Perhaps he meant to console her or perhaps, with the freezing temperatures and deadening isolation, it only made sense to cling to the other warm body around. Either way, she couldn't bear to question the offering of comfort, especially when it came from Albus.

She reached under the covers to grab at his hand and shivered. It felt like more like gripping metal than flesh.

"Your hand is freezing"

Her cousin tensed, uncomfortable.

"Don't hold that one." He irritably pulled it away. He crawled over her lap, seated himself on her other side, and wrapped his other arm around her. He offered her the other hand. "Here." It was much humanly warmer. Rose securely clasped it between her fingers.

Albus was silent. Selecting his next few words with care.

"Rose Pose." His voice came out slow, measured. "You should leave…There is not much more you can do…You don't want to be here when…the power shifts. Go back to London…Go be with your brother."

A ball tightly coiled in her stomach. She had an idea of what he meant.

"You're my brother too."

It was…odd, not quite calling the thing by its name. Not mentioning Cygnus. Or what the death of Graham Paisley would mean for him. Or the stone, which had the potential to change everything. Perhaps he was afraid of revealing too much to her. Again, Rose had an idea why. They were skimping on details because in that moment all the details were irrelevant.

They had not seen each other in ages.

She adjusted her posture so that she could wrap two arms around his waist, and pull him down so that they were huddled, side by side, inside her mess of blankets. Albus was surprisingly easy to coerce into this position. He did not fight her hold, not even a little.

"Let's not split up." Her voice wobbled. "I just got you back."

At the emotional plea, her cousin remained quiet. His eyes stared determinedly up at the cavern ceiling, while his chest rose and fell steadily with his breath. Rose buried her face into his neck and she felt it... his pulse, erratically racing ... Feeling brave, she pressed an open-mouthed kiss against his skin; He shivered. She pressed another kiss, this time, to his adam's apple; He exhaled a little too hard.

She watched him squeeze his eyes, as if trying to refocus his thoughts. Still he made no move to shift away from her.

"You're incorrigible," he muttered, even as his hand lifted to stroke her hair.

"I haven't done anything."

"You know precisely what you do."

There was something absurd about being so close to such a familiar body, something dreadful and exhilarating all at the same time…but even while she could sense the wrongness…the expected revulsion never came. Rose only wrapped her cousin tighter.

There were plans to make and secrets to exchange and a war that needed to be fought.

It would all have to wait until the morning.

 **AN** **I know it's been a while. Sorryyy. I appreciate all the PMs and support. I know this story means a lot to a handful of you, and it still means a lot to me too**.

 **Time has somewhat freed up and I'll try to make some snappy updates. Stay tuned~**

 **Be sure to review** **. It keeps me motivated to update faster ;)**


	31. Shame

This was a fog he hated—an abyss of sensation—Too loud, too real, too present.

At the kisses Rose pressed into his neck, he felt his heart roll about in the pit of his stomach. Her embrace, the awkward union of their bodies, made him glaringly aware of their anatomical layout…His arm that habitually blocked her closeness, his dislodged hips that narrowly sidestepped the ravine of her thighs—her soft features compressing into his neck—the warm sensation went deeper than the flesh, deeper than the thought of it—it was an instinctive urge to know a precious thing was safe—as close as it could be—She worried for him, was always worrying so foolishly for him.

"I wish I had a brother instead sometimes. He'd be a lot less chummy."

His deadpan, derisive tone showed how close he was to mocking the girl for her...excessive affection.

"You _do_ have a brother." He could feel her irritating smile against his skin.

Idiot response. She'd missed the point as always.

"Go to sleep, Rose."

For all his petty annoyance with her, she had a gift that he'd always envied—a certain ability to see the world from a different angle—Where he saw parabolas and redundant oscillation, she saw the rolling waves—and where he saw a recluse with a zealous mind, starving in his pursuit of magic, incapable of opening up even the most minuscule amount...she saw her cousin—a precious familial boy, that she always had to make feel a bit uncomfortable for enjoying the way her attention always wandered onto him.

"But Al—"

"I said _sleep_. I don't want to hear your voice anymore. You're as much a nuisance as ever."

She huffed. "You're just as rude."

Her body shifted a little and Albus found his cold nose buried in warm, smooth skin—He'd always hated her scent, not because she smelled unpleasant, but because of the unsettling way it made his heart palpitate—being so very close to it just made that effect get stronger, to the point that he swore he was able to feel the fingers on his cold, dead prosthetic. It was delusion at best…

At once, he wanted to shove at her. If only so she would slap him in turn, the sting of it forcing his mind to reality. He deserved her violence… They were more accustomed to roughhousing, in the way that was disallowed to all but the closest of siblings…she could shove, grab, yank at his hair, bite, gnaw, crawl all over him—

[ _stop it_ ]

Eyes squeezed shut… he felt a gentle exhale, against his own lips…the closeness of them meant that she was hovering directly in front of his face. A new chill crawled along the span of his spine, eliciting an exhale that just as soon reversed travel and drew in another dizzying lungful of warm air—his lips felt hot, but not as molten as the skin that hovered far too near.

An unexpected kiss was the strangest thing—it should have garnered shock—and in time, it would—but the moment a sudden, fleshy softness compressed to his mouth, Albus wasn't even certain what had happened. His mouth was partly open, and because of it, he felt the gentle shift of pressing lips brushing across the interior of his lip—his mind buzzed, a whipping storm of a thousand different directions—suddenly brought to an eerie still when his mind settled upon what exactly transpired. A slight relaxation of his neck caused a faintly submissive undertone to pronounce through the kiss, causing his head to recline back while his befuddled mouth went numb over what it was he was enduring.

It was quiet—he could think— _What the fuck, Rose?_

.

Green eyes stared back. Alarmed at her nerve.

"It's okay, Al," she whispered.

She pressed her palms firmly against his cheeks, framing his face, trying to hold onto him while he anxiously thrashed to untangle their limbs. His normally stoic features were distraught, like he had just shaken awake from a bad dream.

She tried to soothe. "It's ok, it's ok, I _promise_ — " He pulled away from her, miserably shaking his head again and again.

"Stop—" Lifting to his feet, he stumbled to the opposite side of the cavern. "I don't want—" Collapsing on the ground with as much possible distance from her, he buried his face into his legs much like a troubled child trying to shut out the world. Somehow it was a painfully familiar action...one she had not witnessed from her cousin since they were ten.

A moment passed in frigid silence.

He looked up, his features cold once more. With one smooth motion of the arm, he drew his wand.

"Why would you do that?" he said sharply, pointing it at her. "Have you gone mad?"

She blinked, tears forming. "You didn't stop me," she murmured.

"I shouldn't have to stop you. You stop _me_."

Hs head snapped away from her at these words, self-consciously, almost in shame. She followed his gaze toward the cavern opening...Outside raged a blizzard so strong that the sight of anything past the threshold was blurred white…. For the first time, there was nowhere for Albus to run off. Nowhere to escape from the reality of what he had just relayed.

The wand lowered, little by little. In place, jittery fingers reached into pocket for a cigarette. He lit one and took a long, feverish puff—a trademark behavior whenever he needed to reel in his thoughts. His body was rattling like a leaf.

She tossed a blanket at him. Without word he took it and wrapped it around himself.

Fire crackled in the space between them. She swallowed carefully, finding her voice.

"Why not, Al?"

He threw her an upwards-glance.

"You mean besides the obvious reason?" He gave an agitated laugh.

She squirmed in her spot.

"I thought you wouldn't care."

"Doesn't matter if I don't. You care, don't you?" he lashed, with some bitterness. "You're supposed to care about all those things that I don't…You've become sick."

Tears streamed down her face. "I'm _not_ sick."

Abruptly she stood to move toward him, and his wand raised in her direction once more. At best, it was a half-hearted show at aggression.

"Stay on your side," he ordered.

"Al—"

" _Stay on your side."_

Her heart crumpled.

"Sorry…I just—" She sniffled, and sat down once more, hugging her knees. A shaky laugh. "I was just happy to see you again. I just missed you, honestly. Don't… be too mad."

"I'm not—" A strange pause. "You're a good sister, Rosie," he said these words tightly, his gaze dark, trained away from her again. "And tomorrow morning—you need to go _home_."

"Not without you."

A pause.

"Al," she whispered in a plea. "Please, just look at me."

He didn't.

With a sinking sadness, she watched as her cousin wrapped the blanket tighter around himself. He turned away from her, laying down, shutting her out completely. His voice came a second later, flattened of all emotion.

"Leave me be. I'm tired."


	32. (I don't want you to) Die

Diagon Alley. Camden. Little Norton.

Devastating tragedies. But they were, as massacres tend to be, one-sided. In the timeline, there were no actual battles until the Battle of the Highlands. It was the one that made Auror Weasley a permanent fixture of military history books.

As for the transformation it spurred in Mr. Potter…well, that was an entirely different story.

I tapped the cap of my pen. "So who is it that _really_ killed Graham Paisley?" I asked.

"What do your books say, Mr. Walker?"

"History credits you for his eventual downfall."

"Interesting…And do you not trust your history, Mr. Walker?"

"We have some terrible archivists in our line of work," I sighed, stating what was beginning to feel like a self-evident truth.

X

X

X

 _You haven't told the boy about his father yet. How very curious._

 _Explain._

"S'not the right time." Rose listlessly tossed around in her mess of blankets piled atop the cavern floor.

 _You must tell me before you plan to do so…._

 _I will give you the correct words to say..._

 _Understood, Rose?_

"Sure thing." A bleary mumble. In the inkiness of sleep her mind supplied demons fictitious and real. Tom Riddle was the latter. Rose thoroughly believed that, if given the chance, Riddle would conquer entire worlds. With his cloyingly warm swirl of words, he projected his way into minds and wills. What he could not do, however, was lift objects, cast spells, or interact with their world in a tangible way—he was just too dead.

A small blessing.

Her cousin was still on the other side of the cavern, stubbornly faced away from her as he slept. In faint firelight and the haze of sleep, she could only spot his disheveled mess of dark hair. This unconscious form of Albus did not look the least bit threatening. If anything, he still looked vaguely threatened, all hunched. Even so...there'd been many, many instances where his behavior was not so different from the dead Dark Lord's lurking inside her brain. A strange contradiction in personality.

 _He has been modelled in my visage, yes._

 _A cheap imitation._

 _I will tell you this Rose…_

 _Even if he is become the next dark lord, that boy will never compare to me at my pinnacle of power._

A falling sigh released from her mouth. For all the ethereal wisdom the ghostly Tom Riddle possessed, it was telling of... sociopathy...how he still didn't understand why Rose wanted to save her cousin so badly…It was more than just power plays...it was even more than the fate of the world.

"I don't want him to be a dark lord," she uttered heartbrokenly, under her breath, into the sheets. "Why did Harry have to model him after you?"

 _I did not tell Potter to, if that is your question._

"I'm not blaming you, Tom."

 _I would not care if you did._

She muttered. "Definitely modelled after you."

With an uncaring ease reminiscent of a stroll, Tom Riddle slithered into the crevices of her mind, skittering around like a bored parasite…he was looking for specific memories—childhood, moments she had shared with a younger Albus…The ugly ones, duels, arguments… instances where they'd been on the verge of _murdering_ each other—then the sweet ones—gestures of comfort—little touches of his knuckles there, a brush of his shoulders here…a hug that perhaps went on too long—she'd found excuses to touch him at least a million times in their lives, and somehow, it had never been a problem until now.

 _Curious, very curious._

 _I now see what Potter meant._

 _While trauma often emerges with countless means of coping for victims..._

 _So rarely have I heard of a mutual coping mechanism arising for a pair of... near-siblings…_

 _Tell me Rose._

 _Have you always had these incestuous wants?_

Her face burned. Heatedly, she squirmed, burying herself further and further into the blankets, trying to get away from the question. Of all people, Lord Voldemort was psycho-analyzing her.

"Don't call it that word," she muttered.

 _Which word…_

 _Does it bother you…_

 _Incest?_

"No. Trauma." Miserably, she shook her head again and again against the sheets. "That's not what it is."

X

X

X

Bitterly frozen, bereft of warmth – the morning was no improvement upon the night. Whatever residual heat Rose had absorbed was gone, the blankets had been her buffer, but unwittingly she had squandered them believing her thick winter coat and boots would suffice.

Nausea swirled unrestrained in her stomach. Her head swam with half-formed ideas and regrets. The despair was a heady blackness; the ways Rose had thought going forward had vanished, with her cousin still giving her the frigid treatment. While he had been absolutely frozen before, now it was more like a thin layer of ice, a gentle reminder of the pain of rejection that came before and a warning not to broach the topic again.

Awake first, he sat facing away from her, sliding off his thick upper garments…His nakedness exposed a withered frame—A frail chest, the bump of each rib visible underneath the stretch of faint cotton—where Albus thrived and excelled in magic, his physical self was dwindling—he had not been eating well. It was not surprising in the least.

What was more curious…the entire span of his left arm was shades lighter than his body—the skin was sunken in tone to something so lifeless that it scared Rose just to look at. It clicked only then that the corpse-ly white was a prosthetic…The space where it attached to his body, near his shoulder, was encircled by the blood-red marks of amputation. Silently, wandlessly, he cast pain-relieving charms.

Eyes etched with dark hollows, Rose stared at her cousin tend to his amputated shoulder.

Her voice was a sunken whisper. "How did it happen?"

"Little Norton." His was not much better.

Heartache burned like a red-hot coal inside Rose's chest. Her cousin had lost his entire arm in the chaos of the bombings two years ago. She should have found herself holding back the urge to cry, but the hurt had rung her out until she was dry inside. No tears would come. Any sane being would be devastated by such drastic mutilation, but her cousin showed no emotional response to the question of his missing limb. Even without asking, Rose knew this prosthetic was the creation of dark and unusual magic—Of Cygnus—the creature that had been 'mentoring' her cousin. In what, Rose was too afraid to find out.

Unthinkingly she moved at him, hand raising slightly, reaching out to touch…She halted only at the flinch of his shoulders. WIthout looking at her, this was his way of informing her that he did not want to be touched. He felt unwell in his own skin, ill at ease by her proximity. For years their closeness had been a source of comfort and relief, of volumes of invisible things…And it hinged upon being able to _justify_ each other as brother and sister. Without that fundamental piece of the puzzle, it all felt wrong.

"Is it really so important?"

Still no glance in her direction.

However, Albus froze mid-cigarette puff, sign enough that he was listening.

"I mean, magic," she breathed, swallowing her nerves. "Is it worth…all this?"

 _Of course._ Voldemort's response was instantaneous.

When her cousin finally answered, his voice came out slower, syrupy with smoke.

"Why wouldn't it be?"

"I don't know...Isn't there anything else that matters? Anything at all?" Her voice had an anxious twinge of _something_ she was certain even Albus couldn't miss, unless he simply wanted to.

His silence was neither denial nor confirmation.

With an impassive wave of his hand, he blew out the cavern fire.

"We're leaving now."

To exit the cavern was to become engulfed in chilling whiteness. The presence of light did not mean the kiss of a warming sun; Wintry air swirled around Rose taking every lick of warmth it could. Cold licked up her face and crept under their clothes, spreading across skin like a lacy tide on a frigid winter beach. With purple lips tinged with blue and gently chattering teeth she yanked her coat around her tighter.

Underfoot the loose stones shifted as they gradually crossed terrain. Other mountains loomed in view, cold grey crevices holding the whiteness of fresh snow. While their lower-passes wore a cloak of greenery, the peaks were crowned with a headdress of ice. With the gradual increase in altitude as they passed through the mountainous turns and passes, it buried them to their ankles.

Trailing beside Albus did not hold her arm and would not even look at her eyes. She had many questions to ask, just as she had many things to tell him, but it was clear that her cousin did not plan to relay the vital bed of information he sat upon: He was dead-set on handling Graham Paisley and Cygnus on his own. Rose wanted to broach the topic of his father but feared the repercussions—To tell Albus that Harry was not only alive but that he had _planned_ for all this to happen—For him to be abducted by the dangerous creature Cygnus, trained to overtake the recent dark lord…To eventually be _laid out for slaughter_ on the altar of magic—To die for the Greater Good—The continuation of their world—The existence of magic. For this Harry was prepared. He saw Albus as an extension of his own martyr self, and in this warped logic, he found justification to assuage the burden that came with knowing a creature like Cygnus existed in their realm. Rose did not care for Harry's plan, not truly…She was prepared to lose all of magic before she lost her cousin.

There was a hollow twinge of melancholy, as they navigated thinly passaged cornerways, climbed over rocky boulders steeled with ice. A dread…that this would be the last time they were ever together. She found herself staring at him, many times, with imploring eyes, waiting for him to say something, or even just give her a telling sign. Albus was too immersed in his own head to pay her tenseness much notice. Even when he glanced in her direction, he was looking past her, off at the distance, as if she were a ghost.

Traveling in the ominous brittle of silence, there at last there came a query, and it was an odd one:

"How is Scorp? Is he well?"

Rose gave a slow and dazed blink. A glance was cast at him, a brow furrowed in suspicion, but then focus returned to navigating the uneven terrain. There blew a sudden burst of wind. The biting cold chilled her fingers into clumpy numbness, cold seeped into her toes and spread painfully throughout as if it were her bare feet on the icy whiteness rather than boots.

"He's fine. Out of harm's way. In France."

"France," Albus echoed. "Not possible."

"What?"

"Malfoy's always been besotted. Hopeless. He'd never leave …he lacks the rational decision making that would be required to think beyond his lower extremities." He rattled this off as if it were textbook.

Her face heated. Was there a jealous motive in the backhanded insult flung carelessly at Malfoy? Rose could not tell. She was overthinking, and jittery in his presence, and she was annoyed with herself.

"You always read that situation wrong, Al." With a grumble, she trudged past him in the snow.

He followed close behind. "I'm never wrong," he informed stiffly. "It has always been Malfoy's biggest flaw. He is…unyieldingly loyal. Wouldn't leave you even if you told him to. Unless…unless you somehow broke his heart."

It felt like an accusation. And even if it wasn't one, even if it was just Albus relaying his perceived facts with the usual arseholery, the words splintered pain and guilt inside her.

She whirled around to face him.

"I didn't break his heart. _You_ broke his heart," she accused.

The dark set of brows rose.

"You were his best mate. He _loved_ you and you let him think you _died_. You think that was easy for him to deal with?" Her voice shook.

"That's silly," came the scoff. But then Albus grew quiet. It was clear he had not anticipated these words.

They traveled in pindrop silence for a bit. Night had fallen fast upon the land. No more than an hour ago the sky was painted with hues of red, orange and pink, but color began fading leaving only a faint purple. The long shadows of the evening dissolved into the gathering darkness. They stretched ahead as long as the road they had travelled in the daylight hours. The gloom of the approaching nighttime crept into her like the damp into bare timber. It seeped through her pores, travelling to her heart which beat morosely.

Smoke from the attacks inhibited the sight of stars. The darkness was thick and the wandlight she carried in high right hand hardly lit the path allowing her to see at most an arm's reach in front of herself. Other than the darkness and Albus, all that seemed to exist was the chilly wind that's harsh bite could be felt through her coat. The hairs on her arm raised and the bite of the wind had left its mark in the form of small bumps that were tingling on her arms, but its bite was more than flesh deep. Albus trailed in front of her, slowly now, and even his pace had a forlorn quality to it.

Rubbing her hands together, she gave a shaky, shivery sigh.

She did not want to endure any more silence.

"Look I'm sorry for…" she trailed off, embarrassed.

No response.

"Last night... just felt good, Al…And it felt good to feel good, you know? No one ever really makes me feel good." Why was she spewing all this? Her face was hot. "But we can pretend it's not… I know that it's…bad—wrong," she finished lamely, heart pounding painfully in her chest.

Still no response.

"You're still mad, and I wish you'd talk to me. You're my brother, and I just want us to be okay," she tried again, her voice full of hope that the sentiment might coax the boy into saying something. Anything.

She was taken aback, however, when a gloved hand gripped hers fiercely.

The hand yanked her forward, her cousin taking her in stride as he sped upward through the long precariously narrow cut of snowy terrain.

"I'm not mad. I'm exasperated that Graham Paisley is out there trying to kill you, and yet here you are blithering about useless nonsense," he said, irritably. "Come along—We're almost there."

Up ahead there was a trail that had been created by many footprints. It was obscured by fresh snow and fallen rocks and sloped high into the valley, leading into a rockface. Small, loose stones littered the floor causing her to trip as they moved closer to the rock face. She shone the light-beam from her wand ahead and a cave came into view, the entrance was so small she almost missed it. The cave was built into the muddy brown rock of the valley, the stone guarding the entrance. It was jagged and uneven, arranged in such a way, that it would be difficult for passersby to spot. Even so, Rose could spot a few dimly lit fires. There was a familiar chatter of voice: It was her team of aurors.

"They're inside waiting for you."

Albus had stopped.

"We don't have much time left." Two firm hands came to gingerly rest on her shoulders, turning her in his direction. The hands shifted then toward her neck and upward, to grasp at her nape, cradling the back of her head with his fingers, thumbs at her cheeks.

Green eyes bore straight into hers.

"This is what will happen next Rose." His voice was quiet, steady. "Listen to me very carefully—one, you will leave with your team tonight—two, when you return to London, I want you to tell your superiors that Graham Paisley is dead—three, when they ask how, you will tell that it was you who killed him—"

"Wait—what?"

"Graham Paisley will be dead by tomorrow," Albus said softly, thumbing a hair tendril away from her jaw. "Rest assured your mission is a success…You won't need to worry about such things any longer. It will be taken care of."

In a dazed horror, Rose stared back. Her head spun and it was as if her tongue felt too big for your mouth. She knew Albus was planning to kill Graham Paisley, but she had not anticipated it being so soon.

Another realization smacked her ribcage, deflating the air from her lungs. "And what will happen to you?" she choked out.

His eyes flickered for a second.

"I can't leave this place," he said.

"Why not?"

"I have to keep what I kill."

Her insides felt raw as if the winter wind was blowing right through her skin. The words haunted her, replaying like an echo. He did not have to further explain himself. She knew what was meant. It was confirmation of all her worst fears.

"That can't be…can't be what you want, Al. Please," she found herself struggling to speak. "It's not you."

His mouth twisted oddly. "Isn't it, though?"

"Come back to London with me," she insisted, gripping at his arms. "We'll think of a better plan.…Let's not get separated again."

"Why prolong the inevitable?"

"Why does it have to be inevitable?" Her voice shook.

He did not even have a chance to respond. Rose pounced at him that very second, arms wrapping around his neck. The momentum made him stagger back a step, finding precarious footing as she drove to kiss him fully, forcefully against his mouth.

He didn't push her off immediately. "Rose, c'mon—" There was an almost pleading note of his voice, even while his mouth moved willingly against hers. She tightened her arms around his neck. "Let's not—" He tried to argue; she captured his lips again and kissed him with the proper amount of force to ensure he'd be too overwhelmed to stop her, and for a while he was. It was more of a brawl than a tender moment.

"Stop— _Stop it_ , get off."

Finally overcoming her mental hold, he snapped back to reality.

He seized grip of her limbs and yanked her off.

"You can't keep doing that," he panted, brow knit, holding her at a rigidly enforced length by the shoulders. "Sisters don't do that."

"I don't give a damn," she bit back.

His eyes flashed. "Yes you _do_."

"Then stop trying to leave me." Her arms swung, trying to battle his ironclad hold—Rose was a tussle of flailing limbs. "Brothers don't do that either."

He dodged her little punches. "I'm just trying— _stop_ —I'm trying to make you go home, idiot," he seethed. But in a moment the anger was dissolved. "...I don't want you to die, Rose," he confessed.

At once, tears threatened her eyes. "But I don't want you to die either."

His eyes reacted slightly. The clenching hands at her shoulders softened.

"You're a good sister," he recited a platitude. "I'm so glad I got to see you again."

"Don't do that."

"You should leave England too. It's a good idea. Go to France. Take Hugo, and go find Scorpius."

She lurched forward again. He dodged her mouth, this time, taking a few steps back instead of trying to fight her antics.

He only shook his head.

"It's better in my head," he said, miserably. "Better to keep it there."

"Keep what there?"

"You."

The air felt broken.

Just as Rose began to move toward him, a shield propped up blockading her way, diffusing cold smoke every which way.

And when the smoke cleared, her heart sank.

Albus was gone.

X

 **AN: Like it? Hate it? This was a softer one...Would love to know what people are thinking.**

 **Next chapter will be more action-packed. Big confrontations and lots of evil magical fun.**


	33. The Anatomy of Trauma (an interlude)

**AN: Sorryyyy…teeny interlude. Had to fit it in before what happens next. Next episode will be decently long, promise.**

Cygnus had been wrong—she was no wound.

No…she was a scar, an emblazoned mark unto his skin. Made uncomfortably evident by misplaced kisses on his mouth, more than friendly nuzzles against his neck, all of which evoked detested buzzing throughout his body—sordid remainders of a degeneracy he could not shake. Rose was too innocent to see beyond her Savior Complex. It was his unbrotherly mistake, enabling her worst instincts to see the best in others. He had been born closed—Ingenious, Impermeable, Impotent. A brain in a brittle box. Yet he had seeped through the little cracks that existed within him, and in doing so, he had ruined his sister, damaged her psyche as irrevocably as Harry had done his son's years ago.

Shame and longing were the only palpable emotions, ones that he instinctually relegated to boxes and pushed aside. Heartbreak was a more temperamental beast, one that required luring and taming… time and time again, he'd successfully pushed aside all the cancerous thoughts that dissuaded him from accomplishing goals—There was no reason to struggle now.

[stop it]

[focus]

[ _stop it_ ]

In a vague suicidal flash that was instantaneously repressed by his cleverer machinations—Albus longed to cut himself. He wanted to hollow out his innards. In a cruder sense, he wanted to chop his balls off, take vengeance against the betrayal of his own anatomy. Desire to self-mutilate is not an uncommon phenomenon in an already-violent mind afflicted with too many incongruous urges yet cursed with the self-awareness to know better than to want to screw his own sister—It was the fault of an overdeveloped frontal lobe—A flaw in his circuitry—He found himself wishing back his sexual impotency, even if it had always been a source of frustration—Impotency is a shameful thing in a man, most of all a twenty-one year old boy. It meant he lacked the most essential human machinery. He was deficient. Even if he wasn't really. He only wished it. As is the nature of one who knows entirely too much about one's own vehement psyche, Albus _wanted_ to be deficient because it meant he'd never have to be a sex aggressor or rapist or woman killer [he killed men and women indiscriminately] and perhaps what was the most important and essential reason that remained, even after all this time…it meant that—at the very least…he could've still had a sister.


	34. Reign pt 1

Today was the day Graham Paisley would die.

He could taste it right off; Blood on his chapped, kiss-pressed lips, ice gnashing beneath boots —It was a bone-crackling, cannibalizing sensation that resonated with him nearly spiritually as he ascended to the fortress. It was the inescapable sense of _knowing_ that had always guided him, in place of a moral compass.

The Crime Lord didn't know he was dying yet. That's what made it so exquisite. His death would not only be physical, it would be visceral: He would bleed and cry and beg for mercy at Albus' feet. It would be a feast for the senses.

Large metallic gates rolled open and with ease the wizard called 'Evans' trailed inside, passing dubious looks of cloaked men. He had killed near a dozen down below which none would suspect because he didn't look it. He had covered his tracks. He did not reek of carnage or death or blood; In fact, he still smelled of her, warmly feminine and tart—Another form of sin.

In the sitting room, Graham Paisley rested slumped upon his armchair with a face of utter nonchalance, as if he were merely waiting for a bus on a spring day, cigar in hand. His studded robes had been flung to the side, and in place he wore messy khaki trousers and a blue shirt unbuttoned at the collar.

[sentimentally muggle attire]

A clatter of empty bottles resided beside his chair.

[piss drunk]

His wrist swung his wand periodically, tossing idle hexes at large stone statues that stood at sides like bannisters. Upon closer inspection, Albus noticed the older man wasn't nonchalant, not exactly; No, Crime Lord wore a look of despondent apathy, perhaps even boredom, or misery. Albus found himself identifying with the look far too well. He hated that he could.

"She dead, Evans?"

In response, his prosthetic reached beneath his cloak, and rolled a severed head out across the floor.

It bore a startling likeness to Rose.

Naturally, it was not her. It had been easy to procure a dead female body in the wreckage of bombings, dismember the head, and charm it to look convincingly similar; Albus knew the features of his cousin perhaps better than anyone.

Paisley gave a cruel smirk.

"What a stylish presentation. I commend." At once, he sat up in attention. "So where's the rest of it?"

"Didn't want to lug a dead body up a mountain."

"Hope you used it well before discarding," came a drawling chortle.

[don't]

[falter]

Shoulders poised and firm, Albus stood quiet.

Graham Paisley shuffled to his feet, traipsing down stone steps. "My other men still haven't returned, Evans," he commented absently, lolling the head around over the floor with his shoe, inspecting it.

"Perhaps they've gotten lost. Or they're simply inept."

"Perhaps," Paisley said boredly. Another moment passed in inspection of the severed head, before a leer stretched across his face, as thin and slicing as a sickle-moon. "Pretty face on the girlie though."

Green narrowed to slits, but the surge of anger was discarded before it could be noticed.

"Satisfied yet?" he said, eyeing the Crime Lord with albeit some impatience.

Paisley kicked the head across the room and broke into a manic smile.

.

[what was suffering?]

The pangs of ambition that had always plagued him, he found were now gone—how could they vanish overnight? Except it wasn't overnight. It had been a slow accumulation of many years. He had never wanted immortality, not since the unicorn incident in school—it was only now that legacy also felt useless. Had Albus ever cared for legacy? He couldn't remember. Women and riches had never mattered to begin with. Neither had fame. And the thought of hundreds of blind followers…it felt more like a burden on his mobility than an asset and—

[ _this_ was suffering]

Nevertheless. Today was the day Graham Paisley would die.

It was a matter of principle. Consistency. Where ambition failed, his long-standing desire to kill the man would persevere—there were few problems in the world a well-executed murder could not solve.

Within a few hours spent in the Crime Lord's chamber, lounging with the man and snorting cocaine at spaced intervals, he had planned out the man's death so carefully, he could nearly see it in the fractals floating overhead. It was like specifying so hard one could cut across time and space. It was prophetic. It was romantic. It sent his heart beating madly inside his chest, although perhaps that was the white powder.

So pure and pretty, near crystalline, and so perfectly orderly when cut into lines with a straight edged razor.

Dunking his disheveled head, Albus snorted a streak of ivory off the elaborately-decorated table. It stung going up; Even as the wave hit, the stinging didn't go away. He didn't care, because this high was even better than before.

"Want more?" offered the Crime Lord.

"How much more will it take to kill me?"

A deliriously unsound laugh. "Perhaps—five grams."

"Give me exactly half a gram less."

Ingesting the remainder, Albus collapsed onto an armchair, legs splayed out like an unruly teenager's, head leant back. His shirt was also unbuttoned, and his hair was unkempt. Dark circles rimmed his eyes as they stared at the dots floating above his head, waiting for the drug to remedy his rather unconvenient existential crisis. As it turned out, some murders required a lower efficacy of thinking. Did he like the Crime Lord? Barely. Did he identify with him? A little. Did he want to kill him? Certainly. Was Albus himself a little suicidal in this moment? Perhaps. He rubbed at his eyes again and again, blinking upwards at the ceiling.

"You know—I'm glad you haven't gotten yourself killed yet," Paisley muttered, unsteadily slinking into another armchair. "How boring this would all be."

No response was offered. The monotonous silence was measured, second by second—he knew all too well that focusing on the clock would ultimately make the time move slower—he wasn't absolutely certain if he liked that extension of time...If he was to be the next dark lord, than with each passing moment, he was further removed from the safety of his mind and put upon the cliff of expectation. Cygnus would have him mimic past dark lords. The world was a horrible place, filled with carcinogenic bastards who loved to burn and pillage and rape and commit wars. What was one more to the list.

"Did your wife love you?"

"What?"

He was a twenty-one-year old boy and while it was unhealthy to possess lingering apathy for near every living creature on the planet—there was a safety to it. He was steely in the face of loss, uncaring in the face of his own heartbreak. He never cried at a funeral, not even his father's—he bypassed unpleasantness simply by outthinking it. He was _too_ clever to process hurt on such a concious level. He'd been so distant with near all creatures in his existence that very rarely had their suffering crawled into his psyche.

His bleary eyes did not leave the ceiling.

"I'm only making conversation…did your wife kiss you often?"

"No one in my life has ever asked a question like that," Paisley gave a hoarse laugh. He leant his head back. "But yes…yes, I…ah—think."

"Think?"

"It's been so very…" The man broke off. He squeezed his eyes, as if trying to focus. "My memory is not...I can't remember…"

"How old was your son?" Albus probed instead, trying to do anything to ease his restless mind as his hands were now shaking from the powder. He rubbed them against the seat of his pants to no avail. "When he died."

"He was not much older than yourself, Evans," the Crime Lord gave a dazed response, lost in ancient thoughts. "A kid. My boy was…uh—a uni student. Smart. Mechanical Engineering."

"What is that?"

A chortle. "A muggle subject."

Albus considered his next words.

"When did Cygnus kill them? Before or after he made you this?"

The Crime Lord did not answer.

"Who is it that you are so concerned about, Evans?" he quipped. Albus maintained his hollow inspection of the ceiling. It might've seemed as if he were mentally rummaging for the answer—the truth of the matter was he was approximating where his cousin was—how far she had gotten from the highlands by now—who was with her—what she was thinking—was she thinking of him or perhaps she had decided it was better to forget him altogether…A certain twist within his chest was so foreign that he partly assumed he was about to have some pulmonary episode.

"You said something?"

"Do you really want me to repeat it Evans?"

His eyes returned, devoid of all higher thought processes, as present as a passing phantasm, it was a surprise he even remembered to breath when so disconnected—his head ached, a reminder he was physically present, and certainly not dreaming...He loathed the daymare before him.

"No one."

"Good... Cygnus raped them too. My wife and son. Before he killed them. That's what he does. He gets a sick pleasure out of …I can't even begin to tell you how I…" Paisley trailed off, struck by a wave of revulsion in his imaginings, one that thankfully suppressed the desire for further conversation.

Albus, for once in many years of his life, felt a trill of terror—he no longer felt apathetic, but cold and disgusted. It had to be the drug—he felt like he was covered in slime and maggots, dripping with the putrid rot of something so terrible that he could not approximate it in words. The painfully disturbing image of Cygnus or anyone at all raping [omit] and [change the subject] furthermore, this was the precise moment Albus decided he needed to create a pensieve …Paisley had been growing mad, forgetting things, in his short reign serving the creature…whether this was natural deterioration, or a byproduct of insanity, didn't matter. His own memories were his most prized possession and Albus would not let them be destroyed.

Standing, he began to walk agitatedly around the room, which was now spinning.

A rage of violence rose somewhere within, like a wave trying to overwhelm his senses…He needed to pace himself. He could not kill Paisley yet, even if the forceful mania was setting in. Like a surge of adrenaline flitting his body as icy as the wind outside had been. He had seen his moment, for years and years and years, in the back of his mind. It had always been an echo of knowing…he had seen it—and now there was no turning back—no time to reevaluate anything else that may have plagued his mind—soon he would be in the possession of magic powerful beyond his wildest dreams.

.

Moments passed in the span of pressurized breaths.

One, two…

 _You know what happens if you let him kill this dark lord, don't you?_

Dryness bruised Rose's throat as she swallowed cold air. Pulse pounded between the plates of her skull. Ceaseless chatter rang from all angles, her fellow aurors speaking over each other, but they were deafened in comparison to Tom Riddle's mere presence in her head. His words skittered over her conciousness like raindrops, drenching, overpowering all else.

 _If he delivers that killing shot_.

 _It shapes the course of history forever._

Bloodshot eyes stared into the flames of the hearth, the shadows sullying the image of her face. The heartbreak of her cousin's rejection from earlier was drowned out by newly emerging world-shaping turmoil. Another political burden that would be hers to bear. Somehow, the future seemed even bleaker than the present. She knew just how frightening Albus could be when he was pushed to positions that mandated extreme cruelty. She knew he _enjoyed_ it; There was a rich artery of terror and violence that ran straight through his black heart.

Morale was low, and nearly all the aurors were tired and ready to go home. Kovy had broken his arm from his fall during the air attacks and could not fight. The small scattering of injured survivors they had managed to rescue needed to be transported to London.

Her eyes drifted, past the opening of the cavern. A mountain away, in full view, stood Paisley's fortress of blood and shadow. At the peak of the mountain, its knife-edged spires ruptured the skyline. Deep within the stone skin, Rose imagined a battalion of Crows. Hundreds. Near an army.

Her heart sank into her stomach.

A hand pressed her shoulder. It was Kovy. He had not left her side since she arrived.

"We just don't have the numbers, Rose."

Pain welled in her throat. "I know," she confessed.

"Look, I know you want to take a shot at Graham Paisley but this might not be the ideal time."

She gave a tense little laugh. "This is as ideal as it will ever get, Kovy. We'll never have numbers. Never, ever."

In the gloom of firelight, her friend stared back.

His face curdled in fear.

"I really really wish you wouldn't think like an insane person, Rose," he tried, sounding so genuinely sad.

She looked around at the others, who were in various stages of sleep. She had spoken with all already. No one, not even Dubois, wanted to accompany her on this final attack.

"It's suicide."

"It's not. I have a plan."

"Please, don't do this," Kovy practically begged. She was a bit taken aback by how little faith he had in her to succeed. "You'll die. Maybe it doesn't matter to you, but think about your brother. You can't do that to him. Right?"

Her heart rolled in her stomach. These were poignant words, they poked and prickled her skin, but what better way was there to protect her brother than to eliminate the biggest threat in the country?

Huddled atop blankets, she laid alone in a restless haze that night. Kovy had wanted to crawl in with her, as if to convince her in another way, but she had said no—heavier burdens weighed her mind.

The blackness encased her still form.

Riddle, as if sensing the conflicted feelings whirring inside her head, chimed in a bit sharply.

 _Do not listen to that man._

 _You came here with a goal in mind, did you not?_

 _I will help you through this. You do not need the others. You do not need the Ministry. You are well and capable of operating alone. In due time they will all follow—when they see just how powerful you are. We haven't yet unlocked that side of you._

 _You will kill this mediocre Dark Lord, fret not. I will ensure it._

 _I am here for **you** , Rose._

How quickly had Voldemort become her closest confidante? And how easily. Perhaps it was because she had no other. In the most bizarre way possible, his words sheltered her mind in the warmth of a human embrace. How comforting it was to know that Tom Riddle was dead, that he could neither touch nor hurt her. How ideal this made him. Deadness allowed for an odd sort of disclosure between an emotionally-volatile girl like Rose and a manipulatively-charming Dark Lord. Even if she was clever enough to know it was manipulation, it gave her something she had not had in a long time.

"Talk to me, Tom."

 _I am talking to you, dearest._

"Keep doing that," she whispered, cheek pressed against the blanket. "I like hearing your voice, you've got such a nice one… keep reassuring me"—she could feel the trickling of his slippery smile—"Tell me that I can save him, Tom."

 _Certainly._

 _You can absolutely save him, pet._

 _We can discuss that in more detail later._

 _I will help you obtain what you want._

 _And in turn._

Riddle did not finish. But the moment hung in the air like a bad smell.

"What would you do if I brought you back to life?" Rose whispered—she was not considering it, only asking—she was not even sure how she would go about such a thing. "Would you be the same as before? How would you go after Cygnus? With the Stone?"

Tom's smile grew fangs.

.

"The Stone," Albus pressed on, amid pacing back and forth—his rushing mind had begun to formulate methods, solutions to problems that didn't yet exist but would in due time—a headwind of assumptions had undertaken him and he came to the stark realization that...Graham Paisley, ironically, was his only resource to figuring out just how to use the greatest power in the world.

The Stone was green, round, fuolspar, and shone with a tantalizing light, and it was locked away. Encased in a thick box to which Albus had no access. No doubt a box such as this cost a small fortune to obtain, one gladly paid by the Crime Lord who spoke voluminously of its history, properties and makers. Paisley kept the whole thing, box and stone on his person at all times. Albus had only come for the Stone, not pretty boxes. He wanted it for its purpose. In the next few hours this piece of history would fulfil its deadly promise. Only such a weapon would do. Albus couldn't quite understand why it was so important to him to kill Graham Paisley with something so exquisite, but it was, very much so.

If anything—it would be good practice in preparation to kill Cygnus.

"We need to talk about the Stone, Paisley. Right this moment."

"Fuck off. I've told you as much as I trust you with right now," came a tired drawl.

Collapsed across his grand bed, the Crime Lord was in a precarious state of semi-conciousness. It was past five—already too late by Albus' standards. He wanted to kill the man in a matter of twenty-four hours, but first it was necessary to obtain key information. He had entered the Lord's premises to have a talk but the man simply wasn't having it.

"Jesus, Evans—Don't you ever sleep?"

How lazy. In possession of the greatest power in the world and all the Lord wanted to do was sleep.

"Merlin," Albus corrected him, sharply. "Muggles say 'Jesus', you say _Merlin_. As it stands you are the most dangerous wizard in England: Play your part."

"Fuck off," Came another irritatedly school-boyish grunt.

It nearly reminded him of Scorp.

Paisley's facial expression was cadaver-like, not just sagged but lacking its usual energy completely, as if he had left his madness nestling under the duvet. His eyelids drooped and there was a slight lolling to his head, drunk with fatigue after a session of night-time drug abuse. Guards stood at doors, maintaining a wary eye on the young, frustratedly-pacing 'Evans' while their all-too-vulnerable leader rested.

Albus felt—disappointed, in a way. For all their shared madness, Crime Lord was incompetent in engaging him intellectually. He was wild, messy, oddly emotional for a psychopath, and always a touch too high to really understand the repercussions of trusting his younger version. Or simply he didn't care. He underestimated 'Evans' to an infuriating degree. He thought him a friend.

It was a shame that, for all his hidden stupidity, the Crime Lord simultaneously held sole possession of the great power in the world, one Albus could not quite access in a haste. Albus felt the Stone rightfully belonged to him. He just needed to be clever about it.

He needed stimulation. He needed...someone to engage in discourse to further his murderous vendetta and crawl himself out of the mental void he had inadvertently trapped himself in—had it not been the interlude with Rose he could still [change the subject] and moreover, he longed for a Scorpius Malfoy to bounce ideas off, perhaps even to crack an undue joke— Very rarely did Albus require the company of others…He needed—

Books. Yes, that was what he needed.

In times of extreme duress, he found solace in knowledge. There were pivotal details that he'd somehow overlooked… little things that would have to be ascertained by extensive research.

"Where is your library?"

"Past that door," Paisley uttered faintly.

.

Albus sat on the floor, amid a circle of open books, one in hand, hunched in focused inspection.

A voice came, faint as a whisper, meant for the Crime Lord's ear:

"Someone's killed the guards outside."

Albus' eyelids lowered faintly—the only emotion he could surface was the blunt apathy he felt over the situation.

"It's her, My Lord…she's still alive."

His book snapped close. A heavy and unwieldy pause in the room.

Paisley's face fell faster than a corpse in cement boots. In that instant his skin became greyed, his mouth hung with lips slightly parted and his eyes were as wide as they could stretch. There wasn't even a point for Paisley in reaching for his wand. Within seconds, there must have been eight well-armed assailants on Albus at the very least.

In a flash Paisley's eyes became cold, hard, murderous, observing him with all the authoritative arrogance of a kingpin.

If anger was visible, the air would have been scarlet. When Albus didn't supply an explanation, there was sudden movement, so much force in every blow.

He dodged the first hex—blocked the second, third, fourth by casting a small shield. With his wand. It was not yet time to reveal his skill at wandless magic.

"You can't kill me," he reminded, brow furrowing. "You made the Vow with the creature, remember?"

"You think I give a fuck? You think I take betrayal lightly? I told you to kill the bitch."

It was then that Paisley raised his weapon.

Albus stared down the end of the wand augmented with a Stone-fragment. There was no telling what the unstable man might do in fit of rage.

Two hands raised in caution.

"I'm not worth dying over." His voice was calm and steady. "Be rational—If we both die now, then who kills Cygnus?"

Drawing maddening breaths, the Crime Lord glowered.

The wand lowered.

"I'm heartbroken, Evans. Trust goes both ways."

"I'm… sorry."

More odd sentiment. How was it possible for Graham Paisley to feel heartbreak over him? How stupid could he possibly be? It had taken twenty-one years for Albus to experience the emotion himself, and he had been quick to [change the subject]…He and Paisley had shifted on precarious waters, but they were one and the same in the worst ways, and had been tolerant enough of each other so far—Albus had only needed a little bit more time. Why did Rose Pose always have to do the exact opposite of what he told her?

He had to appeal to the Crime Lord's rational tendencies, for certainly they must've existed in there somehow—For the first time ever, Albus was in the odd predicament of trying to _prevent_ a fight.

"I'll make her leave…Killing her will create political complications."

"I don't give a fuck. The Ministry wants to hunt me, fine, sure, I'll die when that happens—but I'm chopping off the head of the goddamn monster while I can."

"The monster is Cygnus, not the Resurrectionist. That's who you want a shot at. You _need_ me for that. In-fighting is pointless, Paisley. We're wasting time," said Albus, all the while still maintaining every intention to kill the Crime Lord…he just needed time to pick his brain, before discarding the man altogether.

"There is no one else in the world, aside from us, that understands just how dangerous Cygnus is," Albus continued, in his most earnest-sounding voice.

As pissed as he was, Paisley's jaw clenched contemplatively.

"I'll think on it. But I'm killing that little bitch right now. She's in the way."

"She's no threat to you, not when you possess the Stone."

"She has the sheer balls to storm _my house_. I'm ripping the little slut to shreds—" Paisley's wand was blasted out of his hand with a forceful surge of magic.

Albus lowered his own. His eyes flashed with indignation and anger, much like lightning on a pitch black night.

"I said I'll make her leave."

"No, Evans, no more excuses. I want you to _kill_ her." A large wieldy hand clutched at his shoulder, shoving him forward. "It's time to be a big boy."

.

Graham Paisley grabbed her by the hair, dragging her across the stone floors, and threw her to the ground, at the feet of Albus

"Kill the bitch," he barked at Albus. "You said you would."

Albus stared down at cousin, who was breathing hard, blood on her knuckles and blotchy bruises all over her soft face. She had been beaten thoroughly. She didn't look the least bit conscious of it.

Cold murder was written in her steely eyes.

He knew that hunger all too well, how it overpowered every other impulse. He understood why she was here.

Idiot.

Paisley purred at him, as if trying to persuade a kitten to lap up milk. "Come now, Evans."

"Hand her a wand."

"What."

"I'll duel her." His tone did not alternate—showed no inflection. It was as lifeless as the unflinching focus the Crime Lord had beckoned for. "It's more satisfying to kill that way—hand the Ressurectionist a wand."

Turning his head, he shot a smirk at Paisley, who was eagerly settling onto his throne chair. "You'll enjoy this."

.

 **AN Hope you enjoyed.** **Reviews, as always, are super appreciated.**


	35. Reign pt 2

Rose had committed an incredibly risky act.

Single-handedly, she'd infiltrated Graham Paisley's base, a fortress of hundreds of Crows.

She had done so as a _prisoner_.

After her provocatively loud killings of Paisley's guards, others grabbed her. She let it happen, let them toss her like a ragdoll—beat her mercilessly. She didn't know who threw the first punch, but suddenly a stony, hairy fist was slamming against her nose, tearing skin and bone. Heady pain infiltrated her eyelids while blood dribbled out her mouth. Another rough hand clamped her lips, asphyxiating, and she wanted to scream; A kick came in swift deliverance to her stomach and she lost the will to make any noise.

She was no stranger to violence—had been dealt a heavy dose since she was fourteen—but corporeal beatings were a different beast. They were filthy, barbaric, _muggle_. It scared the girl to know just how much pain she was capable of feeling when magic was out of the equation.

Naturally they took her wand.

She was gagged, wrists bound behind her back. Broken, wounded, semi-conscious, her lithe body dragged limply across cold pavement with only the lull of Tom Riddle's feathery voice for...

Emotional support, in a sense.

 _Physical pain is nothing, my dearest._

"Easy to say when you're a ghost," she mumbled blearily. Under her breath, of course.

 _Indeed. But I was a man once…I remember what pain was like._

"Were you ever…?" She let the thought trail off.

Tom did not respond at once.

 _I did not tolerate it as an adult, but it was not uncommon for orphans in my time to be disciplined with beatings—_

 _There is no need to discuss that right now._

 _I've witnessed your memories. You have faced worse than this, haven't you?_

 _Much, **much** worse._

 _In fact…_

A casual malevolence, tinged with amusement, dripped from Voldemort's words.

 _I'm perplexed at how you've managed to live this long, Rose._

 _Your recklessness should not allow it._

 _I want to blame the incompetence of your current dark lord. I hope you don't mind me saying so, but I would have no trouble killing you if I were so inclined._

"Tom, please. I _do_ mind."

 _I apologize_.

 _It was meant to be a compliment. You are oddly good to surviving, Rose._

 _A bit like a cockroach._

Only the faintest mutter came in 'thanks'.

 _I want you to start waking up now, my darling cockroach._

 _We are inside. There is a battle you must upend. An instance you must prevent._

 _The killing blow must be yours._

 _Do you understand?_

Full consciousness came with searing pain. A yelp left her mouth, as a new hand gripped her, this time aggressively by the hair. It hauled her across the floor at an unforgiving pace, dropping her callously. Her forehead smashed against a set of boots.

Boots. _Of course_ she knew these boots.

She looked up and met dull green.

Something flashed beneath the surface of the color and she hurried to investigate the sudden shift. A slight flinch, the barest knitting of dark brows as Albus took her in. She wanted to grasp it, cling onto it, but it was too late, the micro-emotion vanished in an instant.

"Kill the bitch," Graham Paisley decreed.

Through the omnipresent cacophony of pain, she heard words she hadn't thought plausible, and her aching, agonizing heart must've soared.

"I'll duel her."

And

"Hand the Ressurectionist a wand."

All brandished with a violent smirk.

Sitting atop his throne, the Crime Lord caught his smirk and threw back a crueler rendition.

Graham Paisley, in the flesh, was not what she'd imagined in nightmares. The most unsettling part of him was the fissured mouth—carved in a perpetual sneer. Aside from that, he wasn't a Lovecraftian horror. He looked like an ordinary, if unkempt, man. The stare wasn't intentionally piercing, but his face somehow lacked the mobility normal people had. His eyes, wide with mania, rested on her, lingering longer than they should've; It was like the elongated eye contact demanded a greater degree of physical separation. She felt a spark of contamination simply by association.

He looked like someone she wanted to kill.

Paisley turned away from her, and gave a permissive nod, at his men, one of whom tossed out Rose's wand to her feet. Another shot a spell to free her wrists.

Could it really be this easy?

She grabbed her wand and instinctually leapt to her feet.

It was absurd how much Paisley underestimated her and her cousin.

 _He has the Stone on his person. He sees himself as untouchable._

 _He sees two puppet children._

 _The perception of weakness is an excellent strength for you right now._

Voldemort had a point, as he so often did, but she knew her chances of winning a real fight with her cousin were low. Weakness, not the perception of it, was her only option. Al knew everything about her fighting style, every flaw, vulnerability, just where to apply pressure. He'd beat her in near every duel in the past, and considering his new frightful skill at wandless magic, it was likely he'd just kick her arse again.

That said, _not standing a chance_ had never stopped Rose from picking fights.

The span of a room apart, he stood.

There was no palpable emotion on his face, no sadness or remorse or affection, nothing to give him away. Instead, the eyes were narrowed, keen in observation. Green scavenged over her bruised face, taking in the blood and cuts, processing just how severely she'd been beaten.

At once, the pupils became sharp as flint.

Violence came intuitively to Albus, just as sparring was a tradition as inherent, as fundamentally biological to them as their shared blood. The moment they'd been granted wands, they'd sliced, battered, drawing out the worst instincts in each other, the most physical and animalistic. Even so, for all the tension that may have existed between them still, there was one limit that had always been silently obeyed: _no killing each other._

She saw the familiar spark of violence in his eyes now.

It wasn't directed at her.

.

The Crime Lord observed the stillness on both sides with disdain.

"Move it."

Shoulders firm, Albus strode forward first.

With one sleek, aesthetically-threatening motion he drew his wand—clearly still maintaining the illusion of needing one.

How monstrously handsome he seemed in this moment. How good he was at playing a villain.

With a lift of his chin he appraised her, a well-calculated gleam in his eyes.

"Are you ready to die, Ressurectionist?" he spoke with a cold formality.

Rose assumed the hard-edged stance of an auror.

"Do your worst," she growled, playing along.

The steely green didn't flicker for a second. She hadn't expected he would throw the first blow, but suddenly a fiery hex was zipping close— _dangerously_ close—to her shoulder as she dodged in just the nick of time.

Feet stumbled for a half-second. She caught her breath, then dove back into position, eyes narrowed.

Blood hummed in her veins as determination took over.

She hurled a silver hex in turn.

He side-stepped, far too casually, and made a show of dusting off his shoulder. "Charming."

"Quit fucking around Evans," Paisley growled.

Upon hearing Al's false alias for the first time, her brows shot up to her forehead. Of all the fake names he could've chosen…

"Evans," she called, knowing just what would annoy him. "Your aim is _weak_. You must be a new recruit because you're not very good at magic, are you?"

Albus blinked stupidly.

The sheer inanity of the comment set him off.

Her eyes widened, head ducking to avoid a sharp streak of purple light.

The fierce jinx resounded off the stone walls with a loud _whoosh_ and exploded in the frozen fountain, which burst into a surge of flame, melting ice, causing a geyser-like water explosion. Crows shuffled to avoid the hot flood of lava that decanted over the fountain ends, crawling across the floor.

This time, Rose dusted off her shoulder in jest. "See? _Weak aim_."

His jaw clenched.

Visually pissed now, Albus shot crackling hex after hex through the air, forcing her fastest incantations—Translucent blue shields erupted at a near-consistent frequency. His searing spells clashed against her protective magic, popping it, but she regenerated shields at the same speed he destroyed them.

She had the reflexes to match him. She pressed the magic button just as fast. He knew this. He knew this was where her strength resided.

They had done this song and dance before, had enacted it in the family yard many times. The hexes were soft-ball spells that wouldn't have injured, but they'd been aesthetically designed to look lethal.

" _Kill her,"_ Paisley hissed. "Kill her right now or _I will."_

A green hex whizzed across the room, hurtling at Rose.

She feigned a struggle, straining to grip her wand, the blue light of her shield waning—but not diminishing—as it smashed through Al's hex.

Next shot a disorienting charm. Rose let herself get stabbed by the red flash, let stars burst in her vision, but she was able to shake it off easily. She threw a sloppy stinging hex in turn.

Albus did _not_ pretend to let himself get hit.

Fake duel or not, his ego was still involved.

Somehow this enraged Rose.

She stepped back, evading his next hex with a flawless ease.

"That all you got?" she crowed, grinning infuriatingly at her cousin. "Paisley, don't you have any better duelists?"

Albus scowled and at once came a faster curse, zooming through the air, nipping her sharply at the hip. The pain, insubstantial, but the momentum of it was enough to make her stagger to the side.

"Fuck!" She pretended to clutch at her hip in pain. "I guess you are really good!"

His shoulders relaxed. This verbal declaration seemed to placate his ego.

"She's quite good at dodging," Albus said, turning to the Crime Lord. "This will take me more than a minute, I'm afraid."

He looked in her direction again.

Then, a nearly-imperceptible nod.

The message was clear: _Make your escape look convincing_

And by that, he meant: _Make chaos_

Rose hardly needed invitation to trash the throne room. She'd wanted to burn the whole place down from the moment she'd been cruelly dragged in. It would be cathartic. After all the utter carnage and destruction Graham Paisley had caused nationwide, it only made sense to destroy his fortress in exactly the same fashion.

A deep, focusing breath. She positioned herself, eyes narrowing onto her cousin again.

Beams of light shot out the end of her wand, rapid-fire, electrifying hexes, tinged with venomous smoke.

She rained volatile blows as if she meant to smash him into the very earth, fully aware he would be able to deter even the worst of them. And he did. Brilliantly bright shields swirled from his wand, bouncing the spells away, at everything else in the room.

Teamwork: How well they could convincingly fake-duel while destroying everything except each other.

Windows shattered, glass littering fragments falling foul to stone floors. Errant hexes tore away at the grand pillars and sculptures. Crows dashed to dodge the utter chaos of wayward spells, to shield their leader, and finally, to attack Rose.

In the fugue of magic, smoke began to infiltrate the air. Hexes flew in from odd angles, beaming zips of light flying toward a dodging Rose while she pretended to be fixated with attacking her cousin. She shot another violently electrifying hex that bounced off his shield and tore through the dangling lights.

The room became dark, very dark. A second passed and a smattering of lights from wand tips came alive.

"Enough!" Paisley fumed, coughing, rising to his feet just another smoke charm released into the air.

"She's running away!" Albus shouted in fake-panic, and just as he did so, shot her a sharp glare, as if to say: _Fucking run._

How trained Rose was at running. Legs made a wild chaotic dash out the room, careening, nearly skidding as she cut the corner into a dark corridor at a break-neck pace.

Black robes fluttered in her peripherals.

Ringing against her ears came the sound of hexes, whizzing through the smoke-polluted air, torpedoing at her.

With a swing of the arm, she cast a large swerving enchantment behind her, nicking the ankles of her assailants. She ducked, dodging a beam of blue that flew over her head , then spun around and smashed another hex with a blazing shield.

Cutting another corner, she sprinted through the hall, heart jostling, hot and nervous.

Footsteps did not subside.

Her heart panicked. Was Paisley behind her too? She could not tell. She did not think so. He had sat still during the entire fake-duel while she and Albus messed around. He did not seem the type who went _chasing_ battles.

He had plenty of men to do it.

Up ahead a large menacing figure materialized, wand raised in threat, in the midst of hissing a—

A laceration spell flew out the end of hers, slicing him cleanly through the neck. She kept running, too afraid to stop, too afraid to look as the dead body lolled on the ground.

A hex stung her shin, smattering pain.

She fell.

Heady darkness swept. The baying howls and jeering laughter of her pursuers rattled in her skull, and a strand of panic shrilled through her.

An abrupt arm scooped her at her waist, lifting her, and tossed her through a doorway.

Rose landed in a dark, claustrophobic space, onto a mess of papers, coughing.

It was a storage room, lined with shelves. Empty containers, antique furniture inches deep in dust, old paintings and books were strewn across it. Cobwebs covered walls and the beams above clattered as the wintry winds outside howled - old, and frozen from the frequent snowfall.

"Al what the fuc—"

The door slammed close, Silenced, locked by a flyaway charm, and he stood there, shoulders heaving in fury. The calm he had maintained in the throne room was gone.

"What's _wrong_ with you?" Albus seethed. In his rage, he slammed into a shelf, sending it toppling over. Books clattered, exploding more dust into the air.

" _Fuck_ ," he spat the expletive, ruffling his hair, pacing in agitation. "I told you I'd handle Paisley—I told you to leave—I gave you a _fucking_ way out, Rose—and instead you—"

In another fit of rage, Albus tore down an entire shelf, shoving empty vials, potions bottles, ornaments, sending them shattering to the ground. The noise would've revealed their location if a Silencing charm was not in place.

Her heart stuttered as he turned to her.

"Look what they did to your face," he hissed, utterly furious.

"I've had worse injuries."

This triggered him again; He kicked over a stack of books, in such ferocious anger she was certain she'd never seen him like this before.

Panting, he sat down, on the stool across from her fallen form. Hunched over, the disheveled head sunk into palms.

"You're trying to die, is that it?" He snapped, looking up. "You've given up. This is some suicidal ideation for you."

"What? No I—"

"Because I had secured a way out for my sister, helped her cleanly escape this hellish mess, and not a single cell in my brain can make out why she would _willingly_ come right fucking back to—"

"Albus." She cut him off, eyes softening. "I told you I wasn't leaving without you."

He looked at her, dumbstruck.

"You stupid _bitch_ ," he hissed, utterly venomous.

She'd hurled a fair number of horrible names at him over the years, but he had never ever, not even once, called her a _bitch._ It sounded so wretched, so unbrotherly, that it left her momentarily stunned. She couldn't even parse out words in rebuttal.

Albus was standing again, pacing in more anger.

"You just can't stop, can you? This hero thing. This sick infatuation you have." He kicked over a paint can abruptly, before turning back to her, eyes burning. "You're _obsessed_."

She met his glare with a brazen look.

"Call it whatever you want but I'm not leaving—"

"It's not your _choice_ ," he fumed, lip curled. "Don't you understand? You don't get to make _my_ choice, Rose. I'm not a boy you keep under _your_ thumb. In your head, you've got me so jumbled up with Hugo and Malfoy that you can't even make sense of—"

"That's not—"

"Yes, it _is_. You can't decide whether you want to coddle me or fuck me, and it's made you completely mental," he snapped at her, fiercely.

Her face burned a ferocious red.

Her heart stung so sharply she didn't even have words. She stared down at her feet, too bewildered for tears even.

A hand grasped her chin, forcing her gaze.

"You really think I'm any different than that bastard out there?" His voice laced with vehement anger. "I'm smarter. That's it. That's _all_. Everything else is the same. For years it's been identical. And I _know_ you're clever enough to have seen this coming but for some foolish reason you continue to pretend you're _not_."

"Don't say that."

His eyes flashed. "Why not? It hurts to hear the truth?"

"Then why try to keep me alive?"

He threw a maddening look.

"If you're horrible like Paisley, and I'm just a stupid bitch, then why bother? she hissed, tears stinging eyes. "Why give a _damn_?"

His fingers, still gripping her face, pressed into her cheeks. She thrashed out of his hold, face crumpling, tears running.

"You could've let me die at Little Norton. You didn't have to run back for me. I never asked you to. No one else would have done it. You didn't have to make me feel—"

 _"Enough,_ Rose."

This was a command on which he tried to confer urgent masculine authority—brotherly authority. The effect on Rose was to cause her to rise up in defiance.

He rose too and then it was unclear what either planned to do.

There seemed no way out with words.

He grasped her arm to keep her there, and she shoved. She tried to hit him with the other one, and he grabbed the fist. She pushed at him with all her force—he stumbled backwards, yanked her along. She fought at his grip, freed a fist and beat it against his chest with all the fury of a sister eternally pissed at her brother. He took all her little punches, then caught her arm again. He shoved her in the other direction, sending her feet tumbling between empty potions bottles.

As she backed away, he followed her, as if drawn in, his shoulders sharp, predatory eyes flitting over her.

Her back slammed hard against the corner, against a shelf, and at once this marked a transformation.

In the dark there was nothing but twisting, and the sound of fabric on fabric as limbs slid across each other in a restless assertion for dominance. She pulled at his hair and pushed at his face. When he gave her nothing, she bit into his shoulder, hard, painful. Cumulatively, her bites unlocked him, enraged him until he was forcing her head back. The shelf shook from the forceful scrapping, magical trinkets clattering to the floor. Wet lips violated her neck, once, twice. She bit him on the cheek in retaliation. He pulled away, then moved back and she bit him hard on his lower lip until mouths locked. The kisses were tense, hungry, poignant with unspoken hurt, no different from their fights.

"Who called you a stupid bitch, Rosie," Albus panted against her mouth, wrestling her limbs into submission. "I'll kill him. I'll slit his throat."

"You."

"That doesn't sound like me at all." His voice cracked in an odd way.

It was then the hardness of the kisses tasted wrong.

The boggart from their past still lingered. Rose thought he would vanish with age and maturity but he had not. The boggart, she decided then, was the source of trauma. She repeated the three private words she'd said to Albus before the graveyard fight that horrific day. She whispered them into his mouth, only for him, and watched his shoulders cave under their weight. His arms stopped childishly wrestling with hers.

"Even now?"

"Even now," she answered.

His eyes flashed in heat or fear or panic, she couldn't tell, but then the head tilted, instinctually pressing harder into her warm mouth.

Rose held him, stroking the back of his hair with soothing fingers. She kissed his lips lightly, giving soft nips of affection to his harder, more desperate yearnings. They stayed in a confused daze, an odd purgatory, both so impossibly warm. A heat coiled tight in her stomach and rushed over her skin every time he breathed.

Hands caught grip of her wrists, squeezing, making her stumble; She knocked over a paint can in the process; They both winced as it dropped with a loud clang.

"Paisley," her mouth croaked the name in wretched remainder. "What do we do about him?"

That snapped him out. He pulled away, flushed, panting.

His face fell into its usual order.

" _We_ don't do anything." His prosthetic hand raised. " _You're_ leaving."

"Not without yo—"

"It's not a request," Came the sharp note.

A spell blasted her back, stars erupting in her vision and wind taking hold. A vortex tore through her feet and swallowed her whole.

She landed, outside the fortress she had worked so hard to get into, face and knees buried in snow.

A frustrated groan released from her mouth. Arms and legs pounded against the ground in a temper tantrum.

"Bastard!"

.

 **AN: I know that Clash readers are mostly a silent bunch, but I would _love_ to hear what you're thinking so far.**

 **I hope you enjoyed these speedy updates. Life is getting busy again, but I'll try to squeeze in updates where I have a free day to write. Do let me know if you're still enjoying and what. I hope the story hasn't gotten too dreary for anyone. Feedback is awesome. Reviews keep the muse running and updates coming ;)**

 **EDIT: Also, for those who probably don't remember, the 'three private words' Rose says to Albus before** **the graveyard fight in ch 15 are: I love you.**


	36. Reign pt 3

**Quick Note: All the scenes this chapter, save one, taken place in the same morning. We're getting into the thick of it now. This chapter, along with the next one, will conclude the Graham Paisley arc.**

* * *

 **–4:30AM–**

 _Auror Weasley stayed back to kill the Crime Lord._ The haunting statement resounded through Ministry halls when the auror-rescue team arrived in London. It echoed down the atrium, past the grand statues, out into the streets, spreading across the nation like wildfire.

 _She said she wouldn't leave until he was dead_

 _She sounded utterly mad…Broken…Had to be after seeing all those dead bodies._

 _There was no talking her out of it, Vincent._

Of course there wasn't.

The Head wanted to congratulate himself. It had taken years of craftmanship to arrive at this moment. From the age of fifteen, to the age of twenty-one—it had taken _six_ _years_. Six years for the Head to assemble all the bits and pieces which made the Ressurectionist. It was alchemy. He had molded shit into gold, taken a damaged child by the hideous edges and carved out an idol for the masses, placed upon a sky-high pedestal. Distant, brutal, terrifying.

He'd be _damned_ if he let anyone push her off.

The girl was an odd mixture of complexes. It extended far beyond PTSD. Emotional, prone to easy tears, yet not without a sharp-edged fury. Guarded yet foolishly delusionally bold. Unpatriotic yet willing to throw herself into hell-fire again and again.

Now she wanted to kill the Crime Lord.

It was… _perfect._

No one knew Rose Weasley had failed her psychiatric evaluations prior to mission assignment. It didn't matter. The Head let her go anyway. She wanted this. She was unwell, still reeling from Little Norton, and they both knew that. They both knew it did not matter. _She_ did not matter. Only the Ressurectionist did. The Ressurectionist was a symbol, an icon, who in that golden moment became precisely what England needed her to be.

 **–5:00AM–**

 _Ressurectionist Launches Attack on the Dark Lord._

The headline on every newspaper, blared across every magical channel both in England and overseas.

It was more than a political statement.

It was a rallying cry heard around the world.

 **–5:12AM–**

The Head sat in his study room, in the gloom of firelight, amid conference with bickering world leaders. Air tense, tempers snippy, ferocious arguing underway about how to proceed from the dire first step England had taken.

The world was set in a chain of dominos.

Continued existence of Graham Paisley kept the British Ministry of Magic, and by extension the ICW, on the edge of a knife.

For years and years the world had hungrily awaited direct action against England's Dark Lord.

The Supreme Mugwump's voice thundered across the floo channel.

 _"Did you put her up to this, Vincent?"_

"She is acting on my orders," The Head lied.

This was called doing damage control, covering both his and Weasley's arses. _Of course_ the attack wasn't premediated, but the British Ministry now had to double down on the decision. Strength came from unanimity.

"This attack has been planned for months, rest assured. The Highland bombings simply supplied us with the opportune time to invade his fortress."

 _"If the attack is premediated, then why is Rose Weasley acting alone?"_

"Auror Weasley wanted to operate alone."

Cries of outrage. Fury that such a bold play had been made without consulting the ICW. The Head's eyes began to glaze over.

 _"—completely, utterly irresponsible—"_

 _"—acting without thorough support—"_

 _"—if Weasley is kidnapped—"_

 _"—forced to reveal resurrection to the Dark Lord—"_

 _"—dangerous situation all around—"_

 _"—if Paisley attempts to flee—"_

 _"—no consideration of the political risk this poses to other nations—"_

Yawn, yawn, yawn. Weasley was lucky, never having to sit at these meetings. She somehow remained ignorant to the international scrutiny that followed her every action. This alleviated her from the burden of needing to act diplomatically. Reasonably. Like politicians did. Like the _future Minister of Magic_ did.

The Supreme Mugwump cleared his throat angrily, silencing the others.

 _"That is an unacceptable answer, Vincent. All reports show that the Crime Lord has hundreds of men residing in his fortress. It is entirely reckless to assume that one auror, irrespective of reputation, can defeat an army."_

A weighty silence settled.

The Head gave a vocal sigh of despair. Secretly, he was elated. He had the ICW by the balls, hanging onto his every word. The attention was riveting. They _needed_ him to succeed. What could be a better arrangement than this?

"We don't have the numbers to match Paisley" he said, with a purposefully somber air. "We cannot launch a full attack at such a disadvantage. It would be irresponsible and, frankly, _immoral_ to put so many lives at stake."

 _"Then ask for what you need, Vincent."_

"I have asked, Supreme Chancellor, many times for—"

 _"Circumstances have changed as of this morning."_

The Head bit back a thrilled emotion. "Indeed they have," he replied grimly.

Deliberating murmurs passed between aged wizards.

He crossed his fingers, clenched his breath.

 _"We have decided…Tell your Ressurectionist that the ICW stands behind her. We will send reinforcements to the Highlands. We need this Dark Lord threat dismantled at once…It is time, Vincent."_

 _Perfect._ "I agree, Supreme Chancellor."

 **–A week earlier–**

Hands tucked in pockets to fight the cold, Scorpius paced hurriedly through the village of Ottery St Catchpole, looking for a particularly small house in the shape of a bishop chess piece—or rather, what he thought was the shape of a penis. He was back in England. He had left France. He _had_ to, after Weasel stubbornly did not respond to any of his letters. He had a feeling something was afoul. His dad was _furious_ with him, no doubt about it, but Scorpius was hardly a schoolboy anymore. He was an adult in his own right, kinda sorta at least, with a somewhat budding conscious—given the recent shitstorm, there were some things Scorpius felt needed taking care of.

It had taken Scorpius a few days to figure out just where Hugo had been secured away. Rose had been smart about it (Thank Merlin she had the capacity to be smart about something), because it was neither at the hospital nor the Ministry. No, it was away from all the chaos, in a small hovel in a tiny remote village, under the care of an Unspeakable named Lorcan Scamander.

A gangly bespectacled man answered the door, clad in a hideously oversized tweed jacket that was _so_ worn it seemed out of another century. Meanwhile, Scorpius was as snobbishly dressed as ever.

"Hi," Scorpius said, a bit perplexed by just what he was staring at.

"Hullo," Scamander said, blinking owlishly in turn.

"Err," Scorpius began, rubbing the back of his head, sensing it was necessary to break the ice. "You've got a nice home. Shaped like a dick. You must really like phallic things, yeah?"

Scamander became terribly flustered at this observation.

Scorpius released a small, awkward sigh as Scamander began to stammer. "It's really not supposed to be—I should get the architecture changed—"

It did not take terribly long for a familiar mess of curly brown hair to make himself present and relieve Scorpius of the burden of attempting to salvage the conversation (all he'd wanted to do was make a joke, really).

"Hugo!"

"Scorp!" Hugo shot like a bullet, past the Unspeakable, straight into the arms of the blonde.

"I knew you'd come back."

Scorpius could've nearly sobbed in that moment.

He secured his arms around the smaller boy, lifted him up, and spun him around. "Course." He set him back down, ruffling those fuzzy curls. "I'm a shithead. I just needed some time to sort myself out."

"It's okay, Scorp." The boy grinned. That's all it took, really, to amend ties with Hugo.

Hugo looked back at Lorcan. "He's Rose's ex from two years ago," he explained, matter-of-factly.

"I'm not her—"

"An ex of Rose's is an ex of ours," Lorcan said pleasantly. "Do come in, don't mind the mess, kneazles have been running amuck _all morning._ "

 **–7:30AM–**

In front of the magical telly, sunken into the large garish sofa in Scamander's cluttered living room, sat the two boys, with Lorcan himself in the adjacent kitchen, busy tinkering away at some potion that he described as essential to...whatever– Hugo had mostly tuned him out.

Though his sister had temporarily placed him in the Unspeakable's care, Hugo did not really know how to get along with Lorcan. The Unspeakable was kind enough, sure, but he was always pacing, muttering under his breath about 'Veils' and 'Ressurection' and 'Crossing to the Other Side' and 'Figuring Out Just Who the Man with the Talons was'. In an odd way, Lorcan reminded Hugo of his dead cousin Albus (may the scary boy rest in peace), given the obsession with Death, the genius-ness, and the inability to be relatable. It was quite odd, in this sense, that Rose had chosen such a similarly aloof personality as a friend. Lorcan was less terrifying than Albus however and had a myriad of other personality traits that Hugo had trouble tolerating. This was not withstanding an obsession with kneazles.

Hugo sneezed loudly. "Lorcan!" he whined. "You gotta get them out, mate. I'm deathly allergic. I'm literally _dying_..."

"Silly Hugo," Lorcan remarked. "You can't die, you're a horcr-"

Lorcan broke off, abruptly, eyes screwing in concentration as if he'd just had a brilliant thought.

Hugo gave two blinks, not really understanding.

"I'll deal with the kneazles later." Lorcan waved a dismissive hand, disappearing into his kitchen abode for more dark experimentation.

"Your sister's an idiot," Scorpius commented, sitting beside him, devouring a biscuits tin with a particular anxiousness as the telly began to describe the Highlands casualties in excruciating detail.

"I know," Hugo sniffed, sipping hot chocolate, cuddling up in his blanket once more. "She's got balls though."

"Big balls."

" _Massive cahone_ s."

They let the moment sink in, staring bleakly at the flickering telly, thinking just about the same thing.

An exploding noise came from the kitchen, faulty potions experiment, making Hugo nearly leap into Scorpius' lap.

"The Ressurectionist will be just fine," Lorcan called from the kitchen. "If she dies I'm sure she'll just find a way to bring herself back!"

Scorpius cocked an eyebrow at Hugo, as if to ask: _Who's the tosser?_

Settling back in his spot, Hugo gave a nonchalant shrug. Given all his whimsical fascination with muggle super heroes, he had come to the disturbing conclusion that his sister was, in fact, the wizarding James Bond. Just as troubled, always amid dangerous schemes, capable of inhumanly feats, and had a new sorta-love interest every film that was never really meant to work out.

"I guess he's Rose's current hoe."

"You _guess_?"

"I mean...nah. It's not like that. They're just working on...uhm...dark magic in the Department of Mysteries together. Illegal nerd stuff."

Scorpius seemed to visibly relax. Dark Magic. Conspiring against the Ministry. This was normal Rose behavior.

"That's okay."

"I missed you, Scorp," Hugo said fondly.

Scorpius ruffled his curls fiercely, making them bounce. Then his face sunk, growing serious.

"Look mate...I'm gonna be straight with you. If something happens to your sister—and I'm honestly worried _this time_ something might—I want you to come live with me."

Hugo gave a perplexed, and slightly bothered, look.

"In Malfoy Manor?" he said anxiously.

Scorpius shook his head. "No, no— _France_. I want to smuggle you out of the country. Obviously it's not strictly legal, but that's…that's not important. I've made some contacts. I can make shit happen if I really need to."

Scorpius had hoped that this would be a pleasant news for the boy but Hugo just stared back with a stricken expression.

"Why would anything happen to Rose?" he asked, voice pinched. "She'll be fine, she's _always_ fine."

Scorpius raised his brows. "Well," he said, carefully. "Like the tosser sort of hinted... it's possible Rose might…die?"

Hugo blinked.

Scamander called, sharply, from the kitchen:

"That is _not_ what I said. I have full and utmost faith that the Ressurectionist cannot and shall not _ever_ die—"

"Oi shut up," Scorpius barked back, and turned to Hugo again, a rather serious frown on his face now. "I don't want to mince words with you. You're old enough to understand, right? What she's trying to do...kill the Dark Lord...she's not in a _normal_ state of mind, mate. Life's not been too good to her and she's lost it. And I just don't want you to be alone in case things go bad. Because you're like my brother too, you know? I care about you."

Hugo looked near tears.

Just as Scorpius reached to hug him, he scooted to the other side of the sofa.

"Rose won't die," Hugo said, furiously wiping at his eyes. James Bond had survived near fifty movies, hadn't he?

 **–6:30AM–**

Tension strained through the veins and muscles of Rose's body, trudging up snowy terrain, teeth chattering.

"Douchebag," she panted under her breath, with every frigid step. "Bastard. Wanker. Stubborn arsehole. Can't believe he tossed me out like that—I could _kill_ him."

 _We must_ _focus on one murder at a time, Rose._

 _I shall instruct you on how to kill your cousin if and when necessity pervades._

Eyes—lashes iced, lethargic, nearly-shut—cracked open in alarm.

"I actually don't want that," she clarified, a bit sheepishly, to her newly-minted friend Voldemort. "He's a douchebag but he's still my douchebag…let's not hurt Al ever, please?"

 _'Douchebag'?_

"It's just a petty insult." With a grunt, she yanked her boot out of a knees-worth of snow. "It's like calling someone a twat."

 _I see..._

 _Your generation has the strangest insults._

 _Your generation is quite odd in general. You're all a bit..._

 _Irreverent._

 _Yes, that's the word._

 _Profane. Insolent. You do not care for the old ways of Magic._

 _The world is so very different now._

A frozen wind blew and Rose bristled, muscles quaking. "Everything's still shit though, isn't it? We still have a Dark Lord. And we might just have another one all thanks to my uncle's bad parenting." Her teeth rattled fiercely, the cold stinging at her face.

 _I too blame Potter for most things._

 _Nevertheless._

 _My apologies, Rose. It is not often I make a mistake, but I misread your emotional state earlier. I assumed your arousal meant you desired to kill._

Her cheeks stung against the bracing wind. "Not every emotion is murder, Tom," she mumbled.

 _I realize that. I do find the others rather dull, however._

"You'd really like my cousin then." Came a dry snort.

 _Perhaps. But he is still his father's son. I do not think he would be as trusting of me with his thoughts._

Rightly so. "So I'm more stupid?" she jibed back. "You're saying I shouldn't trust you either, Tom?"

 _You should absolutely trust me, pet._

 _I care very deeply about your continued survival._

"Stop being nice, Tom. You're after resurrection."

 _I don't deny it._

 _But I am not lying when I say that I believe you have great potential to outlive all this. You are less intelligent than your cousin, but you are also less controlled. This gives you greater mobility to act on your base instincts. Your survival instinct is excellent._

 _Your cousin—to put it crudely—is of a type._

 _It is not a type meant to survive long._

 _He was designed by his father to serve one purpose. The preservation of magic. Intuitively, the boy knows this. He was not designed to live longer than—_

" _Stop,_ " her voice cracked. "Stop talking about Al like he's some fucking machine." Hurt panged at her chest.

 _I am only being honest with you._

A complete lack of response.

 _Let us change the subject._

 _You are interesting to me, I think, when you are acting upon your basest instincts, Rose._

 _You certainly have the instinct to kill, when you are given ample motive._

 _I would very much like to see you kill this new dark lord, Rose._

Her breath wafted like smoke. "Me too," she shuddered.

.

They talked further about plans. Letting herself get kidnapped and dragged into the fortress again was too risky of a play. Trying to fight her way in was a lost cause given the sheer number of Crows. Her cousin would immediately go after Paisley, now that he was aware she had the same goal...

A bruised organ jounced achingly in her ribcage.

If Al killed the Dark Lord... He'd have to be the next one. And this was what the creature wanted. This is what _Harry_ wanted, what her uncle had set in motion for his son since birth; Harry had raised Albus to be… _this_ … so that he would one day be close enough to take a shot at the creature himself.

And what did Al want?

The question had dangled in the air of the storage room; it went unanswered. They'd been too busy. They'd been feverishly locking lips. It surprised her how clearly he understood desire. Her own excitement had been close to pain and sharpened by the pressure of contradictions: he was familiar like a brother, he was volatile like a nonbrother; she'd witnessed his stupid face all her life, she found him attractive; His touch frightened, yet she wanted to be touched by his hands for hours and hours; he was armored—how fiercely he protected them both—and twenty minutes ago he'd melted against her lips.

He dissolved for her, _it_. This wrong, sick, possessive, tender thing.

Their childish fighting infuriated him but it unlocked him. She regretted it, and she cherished her mistake. She hoped they would be alone together, after all this was over, both of them alive, with more childishness, more contradictions, more mistakes.

.

The deceased Dark Lord Voldemort filled the space in the Resurrectionist's brain that rattled with girlish fantasies. He saw where her focus waned. He was a century-old genius where she was only a child, he saw where she was weak—her wantings, her yearnings—he saw what it was that motivated her to risk her life repeatedly, what had pushed her to bring back the dead the first time...what may push her to do so a second time.

It was in this exploration he found...an interesting opportunity for himself.

 **–7:25AM** –

 _Did you notice what I noticed_

 _Up there in the fortress?_

Rose surreptitiously peered over a snowy boulder, snuck over and quietly hexed a guard Crow. He fell without making a nip of noise, and she was quick to hide the body with a concealing charm.

"No," she answered Tom. "What did you notice?"

 _This new dark lord is foolish, but he has been very clever in other ways._

 _He has a shield that is keeping Cygnus at bay. It is precisely the same magic Potter cast over his hiding spot before he lost the capacity to do so._

 _This new dark lord is evading Cygnus, same as Potter. That means he has gone rogue. Attempted betrayal._

Fingers twitched around her wand. "So what does that..." Her eyes widened. "Wait…does that mean…when he dies, the shields fall? And Cygnus finds us?"

 _Precisely._

 _Albus Severus will be taken within minutes._

 _The creature has the sharpest sense of Tracking I have ever witnessed._

A trill of fear ran up her spine.

"So how do we stop the creature?"

 _I'm beginning to think that we may need to reevaluate our strategy._

 _The Stone must be kept away from the creature at all costs._

 _It is the only chance we have of killing him in the future._

 _Perhaps..._

 _Let your 'douchebag' keep this dark lord busy._

 _Can you seize the Stone?_

Her mouth felt dry. "If I do, can I use it to save Al?"

 _You mean to ask—can the Stone be used to deter the creature?_

"Uhuh."

She felt the inklings of Tom's black smile.

 _Certainly. And much else._

"Like?"

 _We'll have that intimate discussion later, Rose. As I've said, one murder at a time._

A sharp hex nipped her shoulder and she dodged, spun, and with swift agility shot down the offending Crow.

"Motherfucker," she hissed, wincing, casting a healing charm at the bloodied gash. There were so many Crows _everywhere_. No matter how many she took down, they kept trailing her.

How was she to get the Stone? And even if she did, how was she supposed to know how to use it?

"Have you ever used the Stone before, Tom?"

 _I have not had the pleasure to, no._

 _Not yet, that is-_

The latter comment passed ignored; a black web-like spell came whizzing from a mountain at distance just then. Rose tossed out a ferocious shield.

Feet skid in snow as she held it.

Mouth etched, she overpowered the hex with a grunt.

Breathing hard, shield waned, and she paused to think for a beat.

"Has Harry used the Stone?"

Tom became quiet. Surely he knew where she was going with this.

 _He will not leave the cavern._

Another set of black hexes came spinning, hurtling from overhead.

Rose dodged as she made a wild dash into an obscure patch of woods.

"He won't come out even for a few minutes?" she gasped, weaving through spindly trees, running as fast as limbs could manage.

 _He fears the creature too greatly._

The whizzing of spells waned.

Footsteps slowed, exhaustion hitting her.

Trunk-bark scraped her coat as she slid behind a tree, collapsing on the ground, drawing long draughts of air.

She needed to parse out a plan from what she knew.

Tom materialized in his boyish ghostly form, sitting across from her. He sat so close their knees overlapped.

He imitated her posture. His legs were folded, he sat hunched, chin balanced atop knuckles, observing. She couldn't tell if he was mocking or offering support. His younger form reminded her painfully of—

"Rose Pose," Voldemort mused outloud, experimentally tasting the name. He was _well aware_ who he reminded her of.

Something repulsive crawled up her spine.

"Don't call me that." She wanted to shove the ghost away.

A sharp brow raised. "Doesn't work?"

"No."

His mouth twisted into a charged smile. "I could make it."

"You can't," she said flatly.

The smile dissipated like a paltry magic trick. Young Voldemort watched her, eyes dark and indiscernable.

"Show me you understand all that I have explained to you," he said, now terse.

She squeezed her eyes and recited.

"The creature is the greatest threat."

"Yes."

"Graham Paisley has shields repelling the creature. The shields fall when he dies."

"Yes."

"The creature will take Albus if he kills Graham Paisley."

"Yes."

"We need the Stone to dispel the creature."

"Yes."

"Harry Potter is the only one who knows how to use the Stone."

"...One may say that for now."

A frustrated noise crawled out her throat. She smashed her bloodied face into her palms. She wanted to cry or kick something. Her brain rattled, so, so tired of going around in circles. It all came back around to her Uncle.

"What if..." She looked up at Tom. "Is there a way we can convince Harry to help? I can't think of a way we do this without him, Tom."

Young Voldemort studied her face.

"Put him under the Imperius Curse" he offered, smiling pleasantly. " Force him to be useful."

Rose blinked.

"I can't do that!" she snapped, outraged.

His eyes gleamed. "I know you have it in you, pet."

"There has to be another way."

"Time is of the essence, my little cockroach. Your precious cousin will be lost if you don't act swiftly. And who matters more, the 'douchebag' or his father?"

The douchebag. Of course the douchebag mattered more.

"Potter abandoned you both to your fates, did he not? He serves no purpose sitting idle. He owes it to prove useful."

Tom wasn't wrong. This didn't mean she was okay with hurting her Uncle...Perhaps she ought to have been, given what was at stake. They _needed_ Harry up in the fortress to handle the Stone and save Al. How logical Tom made it seem.

She stored the idea in the back of her mind.

"Okay, but what if we..."

"Someone's coming." Tom vanished into a wisp.

Rose jolted to her feet, procured a hasty wand. She peered at the wintry jumble of trees expecting a Crow.

"Weasley."

Fuck.

Her heart nearly gave out. She lost feeling in all body parts as something much worse emerged from a shroud of icy branches. Something she had no clue how to kill.

The Head Auror, in all his glowering, scar-faced glory.

.

She couldn't describe the utter desolation she felt.

How her boss had found her, she had no fucking clue.

"Hello," she croaked weakly. "You're a bit off way from London, sir."

The Head stared.

"I'm freezing my balls off because of you," he barked furiously. "On the subject—you must have a truly _enormous_ pair to think you can act without telling me—"

Her shoulders deflated. "Sir—"

"Are you really that ignorant, Weasley?!" His voice rose. "You think you can make big moves and I won't fucking find out?! That I won't cross the country and _find_ you?!"

She returned a stony, bloodshot look.

"All due respect, I've got no choice, sir." Her voice cracked. "Someone's got to kill that bastard."

A strange pause. The Head moved at her.

"Look up, Weasley."

She did.

Her jaw nearly plunged to the ground at what she saw. Broomsticks, hundreds and hundreds of broomsticks, flying towards them. Her first instinct was to run, but these weren't Crows. These men wore a far different emblem upon their robes: the symbol of the International Confederation of Wizards.

They were Aurors. Reinforcements.

Enough men for a fucking army.

 **–8:00AM–**

 _I told you men would follow wherever you tread._

 _Your actions affect others much more than you know, Rose._

In seconds the bleakness she anticipated facing, moving forward, was redefined. It was such a shaky reorientation of reality that her mind could not process what was happening fast enough. What had felt impossible now entered a probable realm. It felt like too good of a dream.

Hope, the most fleeting sliver of it, surfaced.

The Head had done some political maneuvering, and out of nowhere, Rose had support. Numbers. Power. Authority. She hadn't asked for it, but wizards, overseas, had willingly flown to the Resurrectionist's aid in the battle against the Dark Lord. Everyone wanted to make history.

The ICW, while they still didn't like her, had granted her license to do _whatever it took_ to kill Graham Paisley.

Whatever it took.

Such dangerous words.

Such a devastating permission.

Tom was positively thrilled.

 _This is an excellent turn of events, Rose._

 _I suggest—_

In typical Voldemort fashion, he had _many, many_ ideas about how to proceed with a battalion at their call. In a rare moment, Rose was too overwhelmed with her own thoughts to truly hear him.

A sharp wind blew over the snowy field occupied by hundreds of steely faces. Fortified aurors stood, of so many different countries, races, ethnicities, all there to save England. Hundreds, in a large circle around her. Quiet, awaiting orders.

A firm hand pressed her shoulder, the Head, wanting for her to speak. Nerves coiled and twisted like vines inside her stomach. She was not a speech-giver. She was younger than most of them. She did not have the skills to be leader, not truly. Or at least, not yet. Her only offering was that she had information. She had managed to sneak into the fortress already once. She had seen Graham Paisley, fought his men. She knew, better than the rest of them, what to expect.

"It's not enough," she confessed quietly.

The Head's eyes bulged.

"There's..." She began. She pointed a wand at her throat, casting a Sonorous Charm, and turned to address the Aurors. "There's something more we need. More than just numbers. The Crime Lord has a... weapon... that could wipe us all out."

Hundreds of eyes stared, stupified yet emblazoned.

Tom was furious. _Rose, **do not** reveal the Stone to these-_

"Speak plainly, Weasley. What is needed?"

She drew a shaky breath, well aware she was about to reveal something unimaginably dangerous.

"Do you all remember Harry Potter?" she said, observing the men.

A heavy pause. These Aurors were all relatively young, fresh-faced. They were her generation, not her uncle's.

"We know the stories," someone said.

"Well, he's alive." There was a loud, shocked clamoring.

 _I don't advise doing this, Ro-_

"Quiet!" The Head growled, shooting up a deafening crackling light that fell upon the assembly like rain and brought a pin-drop hush. He turned to Rose, looking a bit shaken himself.

"Explain quickly," he wheezed. "We need to act before noon."

The air extinguished from her lungs at this. Her whole body felt clammy. Hands shook. Heart battered so fast she felt like she was having an infarction.

"Harry Potter is alive," she said, between shaky breaths. "He's...injured. He's hiding out in a cave here in the mountains. He's afraid to come out. It's not his fault. But he's the only one who knows how to handle the dangerous weapon the Dark Lord has and..."

Shocked eyes stared at her. She felt dizzy.

"So what is it you need us to do, Weasley?" someone asked urgently.

"I need..." She broke off. She stared at the hundreds of readied men, all awaiting command, and steeled her nerves. Her eyes screwed in a shaky determination. She needed help getting past an army of Crows, but more than that...

She needed help mobilizing her Uncle. It was the only way to save Al.

"We need to move Harry Potter to the Crime Lord's fortress quickly. We need to protect him, keep him alive so that he can handle the weapon for us...It's the only way we win this."

 **–6:30AM–**

What was hunger?

Hunger was the storage room. Her breath burning his skin, humidity radiating off him in waves. He had a fever, an illness, of that he was certain, his face stung and his teeth clenched. Soft, eager lips, they melded instantly, and with Rose's wordless guidance, he'd found himself shamelessly replicating her actions.

[ _breathe_ ]

His mind felt tampered with. His thoughts were burning in something new, but so very old in just the same. His frontal capacities descended—mental alarms were ringing, but he did not know the sprinklers desperately trying to douse the fire—he saw rain—and the thunder that came did not match the snap of lightning, burning every inch of him as tiny fingers encircled his hungry skin. It'd been agonizing to look at her eyes so close—like they wanted something... _more_...he had felt so warm, so much so that he wanted, for the first time in his life ever, to have her out of clothes and panting beneath him on the floor—they could argue later...they could fight about dark lords later—after his brain started functioning again—he'd wanted to test out the power of her often-trained thighs—the faint reminder, on a purely anatomical level—that she was warm and just as hungry—receptive….these were so very _dangerous_ thoughts—

[censor]

[censor]

[ _censor_ ]

Killing the Crime Lord had always been a question of _when_ , not _if_. He'd wanted to take his time, a well-paced murder in which Graham Paisley's shrill screams would echo to the furthest room in his tower. These pleasant fantasies no longer mattered and [what?] and moreover, she came close to swaying him out of them—he couldn't deny it—those three words tasted better than anything—She came _close_ —In turn he just wanted to make her cum again and _again_ …

[go to hell]

How good she tasted, how monstrous she made him feel, how badly these thoughts made him want to kill himse—

[Go. To. _Hell_.]

 **–8:00AM–**

At long last. _Click-clack, click-clack_ as footsteps paced across the lacquered floors, through the halls, entering the throne room.

"Paisley, I want to talk—"

Without warning, Albus found fifty lethal wands trained upon him.

The gears in his brain switched. Mental machinations rushed to reorient goals, assess the situation, and quickly assume the best course of action.

Albus' face receded behind a mask, the emotion he'd shown earlier in the storage room now gone.

The Crime Lord sat upon his chair, forearms on the side rests, observing him with a more pissed-off air than earlier. Helping his cousin escape had blown what little cover Albus'd had, completely and utterly. There was no going back from this.

[doesn't matter]

In full view of each being in the room, Albus made the grand gesture of—callously, frivolously, arrogantly— flinging his wand aside.

Stark confusion flit every pair of eyes as the stick of wood clattered unceremoniously to the flooring.

Shoulders relaxed, hands folded behind his back, Albus trailed across the throne room. He trailed past the pointed wands, slowly, unflinchingly. Until he was standing at the top step, face to face with the Crime Lord himself.

Albus tilted his head.

"How unfortunate that you can't kill me without killing yourself," he reminded in a smirking tone. "Unfortunate for you, I mean."

Nostrils flared, Graham Paisley returned a sovereign glare.

He waved a finger.

With a blinding flash, hexes fired from every wandtip in the room, crackling like sheet-lightning as they rushed headlong at—

Albus lifted a singular hand, flicked a finger.

The spell beams froze mid-air.

He gave a dismissive wave.

They dropped. Vanished.

Still observing the Crime-Lord, who now looked mildly uncomfortable, the corners of his mouth twitched.

This demonstration was not enough.

Albus flicked his wrist, uttered a soundless incantation, and cast an inferno on the entire leftwing span of Paisley's men, a fiery ball of yellow flame, billowing outwards, filling the throne room and escaping through the window sections destroyed by the earlier duel.

The roar of flames reverberated as efficiently as a thunder clap and a huge ball of varicolored fire belched outward, leaving a series of smoke-rings to float more slowly after it.

Another flick of the wrist. Another. And another.

Screams echoed. Fireballs flattened, then spread to form the mushroom-head of a column of incandescent gas that mounted to overtake each of Paisley's men, who tried to escape, engorging them with smoke-rings as the dark magic spread, twisting, writhing, changing shape, turning to dark smoke in one moment and belching flame and crackling with lightning the next.

Fire flickered, flared, leapt, spat, shower of sparks like a fountain, plumes of black grey smoke, winding itself around screaming Crows like a great hungry serpent, devouring everyone in its path, choking clouds of noxious smoke, inferno, blazing, out of control.

Screams rang out as flesh _burned_ and _burned_ and _burned_.

Wind billowed back from each inferno explosion, blowing his dark hair, strands of black dancing across his forehead, while he stood there, a poisonous smile curled at the lips, merely observing the Crime Lord. Flames reflected in cold green eyes which stared intently at the man, who was just beginning to process how dangerous 'Evans' truly was.

The unbridled shock etched on Paisley's face was glorious.

"We're going to talk about the Stone," Albus spoke softly, with a low instructive quality. "You'll answer my questions. And if you answer them _well_..."

* * *

 **AN So readers. Will our boy Al become the Dark Lord? Or will his cousin keep him from the fate? Will Al finally meet his dad next chapter? What do you _want_ to happen?**

 **Reviews keep the muse running and chapters coming!**

 **To the anon who asked about the significance of the 'boggart lingering' line in the last chapter:** **It refers to chapter 15 (it's been a while) where Rose and Al are forced to face their fears in a graveyard. Al's boggart turns out to be a scarier version of himself. Al's boggart sexually assaults / attacks Rose. The implication is that Albus is aware that the capacity to be this kind of evil exists inside him, but it's a fear, not a fantasy. 'Fears, not fantasies' – is a reoccurring motif in their relationship. Rose believes this fear is the source of trauma that's keeping them apart. But is it the source, or merely a consequence of a much larger psychological issue? Ultimately, both characters are unravelling in uncomfortable ways, and there are no easy answers to any of it. Hope this explanation suffices!**


	37. Confront pt 1

So who was the creature _really_?

Albus, with all his prowess at making accurate deductions, had long surmised that Cygnus was no God. A pretender only. How did he know?

Because there was _no_ God.

[wait]

A lie. There was… one. But only one.

 **—Seven Years Ago—**

The fourteen-year-old boy sat stonily at porch step, skinny legs sprawled, shoes buried in puddles.

Rain pounded against his small unfaltering shoulders like fists. Churning bursts of thunder rolled. The rickety wood of the porch shook. Frigid wind scattered leaves, bit at flesh, and still Albus gave no flinch.

His father was leaving today.

 _A business trip._ He was old enough to spot a lie. These disappearances weren't even remotely connected to auror work, but that was what they were called, how they were justified. It was code, implicit between father and son. Ingrained in the vernacular with which they guarded each other's secrets.

It was a pathetic night. James and his mum, in a screaming match, their boorish shouting could be heard from the kitchen window. Lily was smashing plates, amid tantrum. Stupid, frivolous, emotional people…On a night like this, Albus would've flown to the Weasley household and spent the rest of the night reading in Rosie's little study nook until he fell asleep, but tonight even the urge to vacate was missing…

In dim bulb's glow stood the silhouette, suitcase in hand.

"How long," Albus said.

"Shouldn't be too long," came an absent murmur. His father's voice lacked interest in divulging his questions today.

The thunderous roar of the storm followed up with a flash of lightning, illuminating the small boy's features, which had grown cold.

"I want a timeframe," commanded young Albus, in a rather adult tone. "This time I will hold you to it."

A dishonest god, his father never kept promises. He left for weeks to months at a time, ruining Albus' training schedule and overall mood. The boy detested coming home if his father weren't there. He detested everything if his father wasn't there.

"You know I can't give you a time frame, Albus."

Circles ran deep around his father's eyes tonight. The face was green and sickly, the bony frame was near emaciated, like the life had been drained out of him—the work of dark magic; the boy was clever enough to know this. He just did not know _how_.

Further investigation was necessary.

Albus' mouth tasted ash.

Was he meant to ask: _Are you okay?_

Formulating these words felt awkward. Such a phrase did not exist. The idea of it felt too abstract. Unbroachable. When had being 'okay' ever mattered? Was Albus okay? He didn't know. It didn't matter. They were similar in this way.

Still.

God was meant to be invincible, but his father barely looked alive anymore. Someone else should have said something—his mum, James, Lily. Why was no one paying attention?

A hollow silence settled in the gloom of rain and night.

There came a dejected sigh from his father, a sound so emotionally barren even the young boy's shoulders tensed.

"So will you finish reading and practicing all the texts I've assigned?"

"I've done them."

"All of them?"

"Yes, of course," Albus said, irritated now.

What else did his father think he did all day and night? Lay in bed and masturbate to magazines like James? No, his world revolved around learning magic, without break, with a near religious devotion.

"And you can masterfully execute every single hex I've taught you?" Harry further questioned.

Albus fought a flash of anger. God was meant to be omniscient—so why did his father insist on asking questions to which he knew the answer? They played this game often, asking each other benign questions, useless things, putting on this play where they were a normal father and son pair. It was playing house. How much time they wasted in games. How God liked depriving Albus of the one thing he knew the boy was starved for: answers.

"Do well in school, okay? Don't get distracted by the girls. I want straight Os, same as last year," Harry reprimanded, the wrinkles on his face taut, well aware his son was already learning far beyond N.E.W.T level material.

Albus shot an enraged glare.

The intensity of it made his father blink. At long last, his god broke posture, something sinking past his surface-skin layer of exhaustion. Misery waned, the wrinkles upon the face uncoiled, and the shoulders fell into more relaxed configuration.

"All right, sorry, I'm done now," came a weary chuckle.

His father's hand pressed slightly at his wet shoulder—a curt, but warm, half-gesture.

His posture instinctually relaxed under this touch.

"You're hilarious," he scoffed. He slicked a hand through his wet hair, shifting it from his forehead, and cracked a half-smile.

Father and son did all by halves. Half-smiles, half-gestures, half-answers.

These moments they shared, they were somehow never complete.

"Do you want me to bring back anything?"

"I want..." Albus trailed off. "I want a copy of _Methods to Legilimency: How to Conquer any Mind._ There's no copy at Hogwarts. It's likely been banned."

"Did you check the Forbidden Section?"

The urge to roll his eyes had to be suppressed. His father had to know that's where Albus went _first_.

"Anyway, I'll see if I can find a copy. Need anything else—quills, cauldrons, any unusual potions materials?"

"I want a bezoar heart, tarantula essence, dartwood poison, perhaps a phoenix feather, and anything with fangs—dead, of course," the young boy rattled off dangerous items with complete ease, like it was a grocery list.

"Alright. Sounds good."

The silhouette was turning away, his father was leaving now.

The boy squinted at the figure, growing smaller and smaller before vanishing, a familiar twisting in his stomach. The same knots formed, each time his father left, knots that had no antidote. He sat on the porch, drenched and shivering and miserable, for hours, long after everyone else had gone to sleep.

This was the last conversation Albus had with his god. Harry Potter did not return from this business trip.

 **—8:30AM—**

Broomsticks, near three hundred of them, slammed onto snowy terrain near the precariously hidden cavern in which her uncle hid. Per her command, aurors expanded to safeguard the area, seal it in a bubble. Sky-high shields were cast, luminous fields of blue and purple, not a single spot left vulnerable to attack.

She stood at the mouth of the cavern, hand raised, so the men would not move, would not infiltrate and forcibly seize her uncle. She'd said she wanted to talk to Harry Potter alone. It was only after she slipped inside did the façade of confidence lift.-

 _Remember, you can put him under the Imperius curse if need be. No one will know._

Tom's words crept across her skin like wet cement. It was cold in the cavern. The ground damp, rocky, as she shone a light from the tip of her wand to illuminate the way. A few minutes were spent navigating the pebbled terrain, frozen dirt, the ground becoming slicker as she retraced her memory, trailing through the elaborate system of tunnels, until she arrived at the great stone door.

Without another thought, Rose blasted it open.

Uncle Harry, who had sat in front of the deeply entrenched pit of fire, rose to his feet upon seeing her.

"You're back—"

His eyes fell at her raised wand. Rose kept it aimed, not faltering for a second.

He stared levelly, taking in the threatening posture. His face looked nearly disappointed.

"You've got to come," she panted, heart battering violently in her chest. "You've got to help. Please, Al's life is at stake."

The lines of Harry's face drew, his shoulders tensing, a fatherly tautness taking hold.

"Sit down, Rose. You're shaking. Come here."

She rattled her head. There was no time. "We've got to move," she said hoarsely. "He's about to kill the dark lord."

This information struck her uncle speechless.

She heard a soft sound, the kind made when the tongue unglues from the roof of one's mouth after a long time.

"Good…" he said, voice quiet. "Let my boy handle it."

Her heart stung.

Harry turned away from her, trailing to one of his other many comportments.

"I can't," she pleaded, following him with her raised wand. "He can't handle Cygnus all on his own."

"My son is of the few who can. You'd be surprised at what he is capable of," Harry said calmly, removing a syringe set from a storage box. He was busy adjusting the dosage of some liquid into the needle.

Tom materialized in front of the two of them in his ghostly form, sitting casually atop a boulder. Sitting, a symbolic concept, for Tom was merely floating, which gave the appearance of posture. He wore a coy and controlled smile toying with the hard line of his mouth.

"Potter, it is in your interest to listen to her," he advised, "We can secure the Stone. That is all we need."

Harry stared astonishingly up at Tom. The stare became a glare.

"I was wondering where you'd gone," he said, eyes narrowed, taking in the ghost's appearance. "And why do you look so young all of a sudden?"

Tom's smile tightened to something more conspiratorial. He folded his arms and gave a benign shrug, deliberately unconvincing.

He shot a sly glance her way.

"Uhm" Rose blinked, at once feeling stupid that she'd let all her thoughts be read like a diary.

Harry's eyes flared with a paternal anger.

"Are you that bored in your afterlife?" he said, voice raised.

"Relax, Potter. I've merely assisted the girl. I've been a wonderful help… Haven't I Rose Pose?"

He flashed the most alarmingly _come-hither_ smile imaginable in her direction.

Taking in a full gulp of the handsomeness that was Tom Riddle, Rose _'uhm'_ ed a few more times. Her mind, already so flummoxed with other anxieties, didn't know how to digest this one

She made a throat clearing noise. "Can we please focus on saving Al?" A nervous weight shifted around in her stomach.

"I should've known you were behind these ideas." Harry's cold stare did not leave the ghost. "Rose," he spoke, voice filled with caution. "You can't listen to whatever Riddle's told you. It's not in your best interest. It's in _his."_

Tom gave a sleek, unbothered shrug. "It's both. I don't mind the girl. And I needed to mobilize you, Potter. You've been sitting dull too long."

"Rose, you have to understand that Riddle is, and has _always_ ever been, out for himself."

These words scarcely grazed the surface of her consciousness. It was not important information. She stared between the two wizards, one dead and one alive, both arguably the greatest of their generations, both known to have committed dangerous acts. Both with an agenda. Both she had ample reason to distrust.

"Everyone's out for themselves," she gritted her teeth. "I'm the only one out for Al."

"My son is more than capable of handling himself. You've got to let this _go_ —"

"I can't," she snapped, fists curling to balls. "Don't you _see_ that? Imagine if someone told you to let Ron and Hermione go. Could you do it?"

A darkness fell over her uncle's face. Grief. She felt guilty for throwing it in his face but it had to happen. She wanted to say it—her parents' deaths—weren't his fault, but they were. He'd broken their family, they both knew, and it'd broken her _mind_. He'd deprived her of the most important love of all. In retaliation she'd carved another one for herself. She'd fallen for Al. She'd pursued incest. Her teeth were in too deep now and it was Harry's fault. This was his _price_.

For several minutes, Harry didn't speak at all. He sat down on a stool and probed his arm with the needle he'd been preparing. The fluency of the action told her this was a ritual he conducted often, perhaps daily. The liquid shot into his arm, his blood vessels flashing black as it spread through his body. He gave a pained groan and blinked blearily up at the light.

Rose, heart in her throat, stared numbly. Here she was, harassing an sick man. A quick glance at Tom Riddle, who shook his head, told her that Harry was merely ill, not dying.

"Why don't you love your son, Uncle Harry?"

Pain crawled over his worn features. He looked up at her, eyes poignant with hurt.

"You think I don't love him?"

Rose returned a dulled look.

"I love my son more than anything else in the world." His voice cracked in an odd way.

"I don't see it."

They stared at each other, uncle and niece, and at once, there was a startling amount of animosity in the air.

Harry broke first. His fingers pressed at the crease between his eyes and he gave a long sigh, like an old man.

"I wish your parents were here," he said wearily. "Things would be so different. They'd take you somewhere safe, away from all this."

Now she broke, her shoulders sinking. She knew full well no such place existed. "You think I could leave Al?" Her eyes stung with tears. "After everything?"

His face grew sharp with indignation. "Absolutely leave Albus. He's not a child. He's a man, and a dangerous one at that."

"How is he a man, but I'm a child, when we're the same age?" she croaked.

Harry didn't falter.

With a sad, delicate laugh, she swiped at her eyes. "He's four months younger than me."

Harry watched her in a fatherly light. There was pity in his eyes, but caution remained. He didn't understand. How could he? He'd hadn't seen Al in years. He didn't know how Al had crumbled against those three words. _I love you._ How badly he'd needed to hear them. Harry thought his son was some sort of machine soldier, incapable of human need.

"He's autonomous now, Rose. He won't be swayed. Not by me, not by anyone. He knows there's too much at stake."

"He doesn't want this."

Harry looked troubled at this assertion. He took a deep, steadying breath. When he spoke again his voice was gravelly:

"There are consequences to defying the creature. It is safest he not be angered and that history repeat itself...for now…He'll be there to take Albus. He'll kill anyone who gets in the way."

"Potter," Tom interjected. "This new dark lord has shields repelling the creature. Same as you. They will drop once he dies. If Cygnus shows up...you can use the Stone to fend him off." He nodded approvingly toward Rose. "That is what the girl wants."

Harry stared, face growing incensed.

"That will anger the creature. He won't back off easily."

"We'll handle it," she tried to assure. "We'll all be there...I have aurors, I have people, we'll all be there to protect you. You're not alone."

Harry's face etched in discomfort.

"It's not _me_ I'm worried about. It's..." He broke off, ran an incredulous hand through his hair, blinking at the floor. For a second he looked dazed, as if reminiscing a terrible experience.

He looked at her, blinking wide.

"He has so _much power_...You can't imagine. So many lives will be lost. The second he senses a plot to upturn him—"

"Things can be prevented if we have the Stone, Potter," Tom said, impatient now. "You know this. It is time to strike."

"I'm not going to _risk_ it. I _can't_. I couldn't live with myself if I..." A guttural shudder.

Tom glanced intently at her, the corner of his mouth smudged in irritation, and she knew what had to be done. Rose lifted her wand, pointed it at her uncle, the muscles in her arm trembling.

"Then I'm sorry, Uncle Harry," she whispered, just as she cast the Imperius curse.

 **—8:30AM—**

"You think you're frightening, do you Evans?"

The question hung in the room, lapping up the oxygen undevoured by noxious flame.

Crows—the survivors—had straggled and evacuated out the room. Albus did not go after them. His attention was on the Crime Lord who had not budged a muscle. Paisley sat, long fingers curling at the ends of each armrest like spider legs. He had not reached for his wand. He watched Albus attentively, though the manic eyes seemed hollow in the intensity of surrounding flames.

His voice was quiet, throaty. "You think I didn't see this coming? You really think I'm that big of a fool Evans?"

Albus didn't miss a beat.

"Yes. You trusted me," he said.

Teeth gritted, canines glinting like a feral animal in the firelight. "I didn't trust you for a second, boy… I just didn't give a _fuck_."

Paisley's hand reached into robes, took out a box, and unlocked it with a swipe of the thumb. He removed the Stone. It shone blindingly bright, before dimming, and at once it shrank, adjusting to fit his large hand.

"I endured a _world_ of misery before you showed up, Evans. And you know what I learned from it, from the creature?" he seethed, treacherously squeezing the Stone in his palm. "It's that I'm not afraid to blow _this one_ up."

Fear, the _greatest_ fear, became verbalized. Albus had known that Paisley was too unstable to wield the Stone. A muggle: He had no stake in the wizarding world. His precarious mental state would never be conducive to an alliance. He was trigger-happy. A flash of anger, or the right betrayal, no matter how petty, would be enough to set him off, make him destroy everything. He didn't even mind killing himself in the process.

"If you kill us both, the creature wins." Albus' eyes were now violently etched on the Stone. "And what would be the point of that? Of anything at all?"

"Life is an empty ruse full of meaningless diversions. There's no point to any of the chaos we create."

"Nihilism bores me."

"I don't care what bores you. Get on your knees and apologize this instant," came a ferocious growl, edged with a sulky petulance. "You've hurt my feelings yet again...you're a terrible friend."

Albus stared at the Dark Lord for a maddeningly long moment.

"I was never your friend," he said, at last, irritated.

This touched a nerve. Paisley's eyes flared with a very real intensity.

Who threw the first spell could not be certain: they both moved so fast. But as Paisley shifted off his chair, Albus was unexpectedly flung back, a wave of pain erupting as head smashed against the wall. Air left his body in a crush, and the blood he was surprised to taste was his own, wadded against his tongue. He blinked confusedly, vision doubling, the fumes of his own fiery destruction making it difficult to observe the long strides made across the cold stone.

At last. This was the power of the Stone.

"You know—it pisses me off that you don't have a single loyal bone in your body," came the brisk, annoyed voice.

"It pisses me off that you expected one," Albus coughed, focusing his vision to glare back fiercely.

A spell shot and he was airborne again, hurtled sadistically through the air. He crumpled at the front end of the large ice sculpture at the center of the room, one leg hanging over the edge. His head rested against the dangerously fanged ice configuration. A little more pressure and it would push through his skull bone.

He lifted himself, steadied his vision, attempted to gain footing. This was his first real encounter with the Stone's prowess. He coughed, raised his prosthetic arm, and saw another blinding flash of light hurtling. Though he braced against it, casting as strong of a shield as he could manage, it landed with much success, a brick to his temple.

It knocked him over.

Fresh pain broke as skull smacked to ice. Wetness trickled. His hair was sopping with blood.

Puffs of putrid smoke shot out Paisley's clenched hand now, across the span of the room, approaching Albus with frightening velocity. Inches away, they morphed into black hands. The hands wrapped around his throat, but they were slippery, and Albus twisted, believing that Paisley could not maintain the spell for long.

The grip, however, changed. The sieve-like fingers laced through his hair and drove his forehead once more into the floor. This time, Albus heard the crystalline crunch of bone. For an instant his eyes were pressed to hardness and he was lost in concussion, then a spell gripped his neck and forced his gaze upwards.

Frenzied eyes stared into his.

The fissured mouth was curled to a half-sneer, half-smile.

"Oh Evans… _of course_ I didn't expect loyalty from you," The Crime Lord remarked, in a teasingly airy tone, like they were friends out for a walk in the park.

Albus, face thoroughly bloodied, gave a sharp grunt as Paisley levitated him into the air by the collar forcefully, levelling him against a pillar.

Smoke expelled from the clenched palm once more. The wisps twisted around all four of Albus' limbs, pinning his ankles, raising his arms out in a disturbing rendition of Jesus on the Cross.

The muggle Dark Lord grinned viciously.

"Go on, Evans. Correct me. Tell me I ought to say Merlin," he snarked.

Albus did not have energy for rebuttal. Wisps refolded. This time, he was seized by the back. A spell _smashed_ him full-body against the floor, again and again and again. This was done with such ferocity he heard a _crack crack crack_. Bones. His body curled inward landing to the floor a final time. His ribcage had lost edifice. He imagined his death so vividly. One wrong movement and a snapped rib would slash through his frenetically pacing heart. Albus couldn't breathe. He couldn't _think_.

His high threshold for pain afforded one thing though.

He summoned every final drop of energy. His prosthetic arm raised and out of his fingertips swirled a furiously churning inferno, serpent-like wisps of flame heading toward Paisley, seeking to devour—

Paisley pointed the Stone in his direction and the fiery serpents vanished. Albus, panting agitatedly, felt a draining of marrow, a hollow sinking….

Had he miscalculated?

Just how powerful was the Stone?

Could he even win this?

His prosthetic arm waned under the pain flitting the body.

The Crime Lord stared down at him hollowly.

"I should just kill you, shouldn't I," he sighed. "Put you out of your misery. You're rude and you'll continue to disappoint me."

"Killing me will just kill you too," Albus coughed, blood trailing his gums and slicking down his jawline.

"So what? We're both dead men anyway."

Albus gave no response.

A muscle in the Crime Lord's jaw clenched. He strode forward, gripped him by the arm, and yanked him up with such abruptness that he couldn't find proper footing.

In what was the most frightening thing so far, Paisley pressed up intimately against his ear.

"I'm going to give you hell," he whispered. "For breaking my heart."

Albus gave an unsteady blink, nearly tumbling, as the Stone was shoved against his broken ribcage.

What—

His body shuddered from the immense cold as the Stone pressed between fragmented bones. His insides felt like they were being liquified.

An acrid smoke diffused out of the spot, the wisps swirling around his throat like ropes in a chokehold.

Blurring, blinding pain threatened to overwhelm his senses and he staggered backwards, but by some miracle, held footing and untangled himself from the wisps.

He clenched at Paisley's robes with his prosthetic hand and with a soundless enchantment set them aflame.

The man yelped, drawing away, staggering as he tried to put it out.

Albus, gasping as he seized footing, shot a shaky hex at the man's leg.

Paisley fell. At last vulnerable.

A surge of feeling engulfed Albus then, pushing him beyond his bodily pain into an extremity of hatred and violence. With his breathing irregular and heavy, he dashed and made a wild barbaric leap. He fell to the ground, gripping Paisley's windpipe with his inhumanly prosthetic arm and clasping him tight to the floor. He stared at the Dark Lord, into him, with a rigidity, a savagery, and begun to asphyxiate.

Paisley swung limbs, cursed and howled and spat blood, his face slowly turning blue.

His fist maintained a forceful clench around the Stone.

With his other hand, Albus transfigured a nearby fallen candlestick into a sharp cleaver and began the macabre work of sawing off the Dark Lord's hand. He would get to the damn Stone, one way or another.

"Ah— _ahhh_ …"

Blade carved into soft flesh like butter.

A pained shriek rang through the large room, bouncing off walls, echoing down the corridors of the castle.

"Release it," Albus commanded, bloodied sweat dripping from his furrowed brow. "Or I chop the whole thing off."

The Dark Lord did not obey.

Albus pressed the cleaver deeper, cutting subcutaneous flesh, veins, tendons. Blood seeped out the forming gash.

"St- _stop_!" Paisley cried out again.

Flinching, trembling fingers stayed tight.

Albus smirked cruelly. He would enjoy this. "Fine, then," he grunted, and with one harsh cut wedged the cleaver in deep through bone.

The Crime Lord gave a loud final shriek.

Albus wasted no time in gripping the severed hand. His feet nearly slipped, skid, as he made a wild dash through the castle. He rounded a corner, the sudden rush of air shocking his throat and damaged chest cavity. He forced the air into his ribcage, gasping deeper, faster. With each footfall a jarring pain shot ankle to knee, ankle to knee. The price for faltering was high: his whole body would pay the price.

He slipped through a small slant door into some pantry room and, irritably fishing though pants pockets for a carton of cigarettes, angled himself against the wall. He kicked and hexed the door shut. The severed hand dropped to his side: Out rolled the Stone. He lit the end of his cigarette with the finger of his prosthetic and inhaled, pinched-red-eyes fluttering.

Smoke spilled into the small compartment, rolling over him like waves as his body skid to the ground, collapsing, unable to withstand the pressure of posture. A pained groan left his mouth. His palms were slick with blood and his wrists were sore from the force of his racing pulse. He took the Stone and held it in his palm, stared down at it perplexedly with mad, flickering eyes. How heavy the Stone was, yet oh so light to the touch.

Just how was he meant to use it?

How would he fend off the creature?

His only resource to the Stone was currently bleeding on the floor of the throne-room.

Albus gave an irritated sigh.

A noise came in the pantry, a soft shuffling, bit like a mouse.

Albus raised and curled two fingers, instructing the intruder to come forth.

It was Rachel. She drew out of the darkness, with fear in her eyes. It wasn't until she stood in proper lighting that Albus saw her face covered with scars from the fire—the inferno _he'd_ caused. She stared at him with such intent horror it was as if she was seeing a ghoul.

Albus placed a cautious finger at his lips, then raised a hand at the closed doorway and cast a Silencing charm.

Just as he finished, she cried out:

"You bastard! Look at my face! Look what you _did_."

The right side of her beautiful face had been horribly disfigured.

His brows etched.

"Sorry."

She moved at him in fury, wanting to hit him, and his shoulders flinched. He was wounded and had no desire to hit back. She halted in her step, evidently deciding it wasn't worth it.

"Oh god oh god," she wept. Hysterical. The shrillness made him wince. "You've set him off. He's gone mad. He said—he's going to blow it all up. He's going to destroy everything. Oh _god_."

Albus' bloodshot eyes gleamed in triumph.

"He won't." He raised the Stone. "I have it."

A very different fear passed over Rachel's face.

"Cm'here," he instructed.

She hurriedly fell to his call, leaning into him.

"Let me see."

She offered over her face as per order, allowing him to hold her by the chin, flinching as his cold fingers lightly grazed the wound.

Albus sorted through his mental library of healing enchantments, though it was albeit limited. He was no great Healer. He had not spent much time learning non-offensive magic. Flicking through the catalogue, he did, however, find the appropriate one for third-degree burns.

He muttered a charm under his breath, grazed a gentle finger across her face. The wound vanished.

"There, all pretty again." He busied himself in lighting another spliff. "No more screaming. Get out. I need to think."

Rachel stared at him, slack-jawed at the rudeness.

"You're a real fucking psychopath, aren't you?" She gave a bitter laugh. "Just like him."

Albus ignored this. He drew a long drag and exhaled, trying to focus his thoughts.

"I hope you two kill each other," she bit again, all too venomously. "By the looks of it…You'll be bleeding to death soon anyway."

"Do you have somewhere you can go Rachel?"

"Yes."

"Stop wasting time. Go."

She did not need more prodding. She didn't care what came next. No sane human would. A flash of smoke came, and she'd morphed to her Crow form. Glass hinges shook as she flew out the window, far away from the fortress, from Graham Paisley, from everything.

Albus twisted a cigarette around between his bloodied fingers, deliberating his next move.

"Fuck," he breathed.

 **—9:45AM—**

Outside the fortress, the sky was ablaze in battle. Beams of light hurtled back and forth.

Hexes raced through the open air. A battalion of Aurors edged onto Paisley's castle on broomsticks, slowly drawing in the many Crows. Hovering bodies jerked up and down, back and forth, to dodge spells. It was a large expanse of air in which disorientating hexes traversed in both directions, zipping across her vision in an explosive firework-like frenzy, too much happening at once.

Rose, with the lolling body of her Uncle Harry strapped to her back, swerved sideways to avoid the hurtling beam of light. Harsh wind assaulted her face. It was a careful balancing act. Every time his semi-conscious body shifted a little too much in a direction, she instantly had to shift the same way to keep him steady. They had to get him inside quickly, so that he was inside Paisley's shields. Finding passageway through a field of Crows, Rose shifted her broom to an incline down again, picking up speed. She tried to keep her eyes open against the biting cold and focus on finding access into the castle, a window, _something_.

"Shit—!"

Rose jerked upwards suddenly to dodge a stream of silver, yanked her weapon in split-second motion, and shot a hex at the offender. The Crow toppled off his broomstick. Rose watched impatiently as he tumbled into snow. This was taking too long. They had to ensure Albus didn't kill the Dark Lord. They had to stall him _somehow_.

She groaned, flying upward to dodge another hex coming at her. "Tom, can you stall—"

 _I'll handle it._

He'd been thinking along the same lines as her.

"Thank you," she sighed in relief. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

Rose felt an odd sensation press onto her brain. Cold, but moist and reassuring. It was almost as if Tom had kissed the inside of her skull.

 _You need not worry, my pet._

At once, Tom dissipated from her mind.

He shot through the air in a black wisp of smoke, down to the castle, swirling through the many hovering broomsticks, cutting through a window and winding through the fortress's many rooms and windows and passageways filled with Crows engaging in various actions at break-neck speed, until he had at last long found the compartment he wanted.

The boy was wounded.

 **—9:55AM—**

For all his wavering mental faculties, Albus saw, so very vividly, two timelines.

Timeline 1: He killed Graham Paisley.

Doing so would be bind him to the fate of a dark lord. The creature would take him, break him, and make him anew...and eventually, unless Albus killed the creature himself, he too would be killed.

[Projected time to death: 4-10 years]

Timeline 2: He failed to kill Graham Paisley...

What would happen if someone else did it?

[analyze the creature's disposition]

Unrelenting. Unforgiving. Powerful beyond measure. And—

Apathetic.

He wanted Albus as the next dark lord. Noncompliance was not an option. Failure would deem Albus useless. The most probable way this would work out is—he would… _kill_ Albus.

[Projected time to death: Minutes]

Paisley, for all his stupidity, had not been wrong: They were both dead men. Every road ended in his abject demise. Unless. Either Albus learned to use the Stone, for which he had no stable resource, or he learned to conquer De—

"I hope I'm not interrupting, Albus Severus"

A bewildered blink as a voice snapped him from his premature mental mapping. The sound was low, baritone, and oddly pleasant. Albus had barely begun his usual calculations when a wisp of smoke shot in front of him, morphing by some form of magic, and a handsome silvery figure emerged. One that looked very much like, from what he knew in history books, a younger version of—

"Not possible," Albus immediately dismissed.

"And why is that?"

"You're dead."

Tom Riddle's eyes gleamed in humor.

Albus stared, trying to find a strain of logic in the absurdity of what he was witnessing.

"I'm hallucinating," he echoed. The only viable explanation.

A noise resounded from outside. The loud, violent shattering of glass. While the Crime Lord lacked a hand now, his temper had not improved. Rather, decapitation had only worsened his insolence. He had been prowling the corridors with his men searching for a wounded 'Evans'. The man had no control, no tact. Every few minutes, he devolved into a fit of rage. Albus didn't bother wondering what he'd destroyed this time.

Riddle tilted his head only slightly to acknowledge the noise, maintaining attention on him.

"I'm flattered that you'd hallucinate about me, Albus Severus."

"Perhaps I'm already dead," Albus theorized once more, his mind whirring with ideas. "And this is hell." Why else would he be seeing Voldemort?

Riddle leant in with a sneer. " _Muggles_ believe in hell," he said, mouth curled in distaste.

"Doesn't make them wrong, just makes them different," Albus uttered faintly, deep in perplexed thought, staring at the wall, paying no attention to the hallucination's temper. He took a long drag of his cigarette.

Another obnoxious clattering outside. Likely a knocked statue. Or not. He didn't care. The Crime Lord had to be making his third round around the castle now.

"Ignore him," Albus coughed, exhaling smoke. "He's an idiot."

Riddle raised both brows in amusement.

"A dangerous idiot. He has the Stone."

"The Stone fuels the idiocy further," Albus murmured absently, eyes beating into the wall. "And anyway, he doesn't have it anymore."

The previous Dark Lord took in the demeanor of the prospective Dark Lord, and then turned down at the severed hand which lay rather crudely on the floor. He then turned his head to the door, outside of which the current Dark Lord lurked about in an explosive fit of rage. It took a few seconds but Riddle pieced it all together.

"So you acquired it," he noted wryly.

"Of course I did," Albus mumbled, twisting his cigarette between fingers. "That was never the problem."

Riddle's eyes shone with knowing. "Its power is a difficult thing to ascertain, is it not," he said loftily. "The Stone is unparalleled. But difficult to understand."

A sharp _clang_ akin to a toppling set of knives outside. The Crime Lord was likely prowling for an old-school murder weapon to match the cleaver that had slighted him. What a frivolous man, wasting time like that. In his shoes, Albus would've found and killed Albus already.

Albus switched subjects. "So, you're a ghost now." He cleared his throat. "What's death like?"

"Considering joining me?"

"I'm deliberating all my options at the moment."

Riddle floated around next to Albus, resting in precisely the same posture, and stared stonily at the same wall. "Death has made me a dullard," he hissed in answer. "I dislike it immensely. I long for something to kill."

Tilting his head upward, Albus blew a puff of smoke. "Sounds boring."

"It _is_."

"Why not pass over entirely. Find out what's next."

"I have unfinished business."

"Very interesting," Albus murmured, considering these words, breaking them apart and storing the fragments into the appropriate sections of his brain. His mind whirred with probabilities.

"Also the creature?" he said, glancing sideways at Riddle.

Riddle cocked a bored brow in turn. "Bit of an obvious assessment, isn't it?" he said scathingly. "It really should not take you that long, Albus Severus."

"Sorry," came the grunt. Albus was busy fishing a third cigarette from his pocket. A _clang clang clang_ ; Paisley was banging pots and pans now for whatever the fuck reason as he upturned his large kitchen, still somehow managing forgetting to check the thirdmost pantry on the right. Albus determined idiocy had no upper bound. He leant his head back again, adjusting his body, and a sharp pain panged through his center. "I think I have internal bleeding."

"You don't know the spell for it?"

"I don't know every spell in existence." Albus, head against the windowsill, stared up blearily at the ceiling. His brain wouldn't steady. Little dots kept skittering across his vision.

A rather awkward pause.

"And I don't suppose you'd tell me."

He glanced sideways, a bit imploringly, at the dead Dark Lord, who gave an uncaring half-shrug.

"It doesn't inconvenience me to let you die, really," Riddle said, all too comfortably. "But…it will upset your Rose Pose."

Albus blinked, at once sitting up straight, causing an even sharper, near burning pain to shoot though his middle. He gave a wince.

"A wonderful creature, your cousin," came Riddle's smirking response, startling Albus before he could even form the question he was meant to ask. "How she manages to upend you in every way possible, with such finesse, is remarkable. How fond I've grown of being inside her."

Albus' eyes drew into a sharp look.

Ever the picture of deceitful charm, Riddle smiled pleasantly in turn.

Albus' eyes tightened, scrutinizing the information given to him.

"Riddle—" he began.

"Please, call me Tom."

Albus assessed the ghost's smirk. "I won't," he said flatly. "I don't care what my idiot cousin has promised you in exchange for whatever it is you've fooled her into thinking you're providing her—You won't be getting it. In fact, I'm completely certain you're after—"

"Resurrection. Well of course I am," Riddle finished, with a gleam in those charcoal eyes. "Another obvious fact…You are slow today, aren't you?"

Albus returned an unfettered look.

"Anyway," Riddle said, smile broadening, lengthening so that his face lacked the usual appeal of his handsomeness. "I want to talk about you. You are what I expected. I am not surprised to find you as high-strung as his father. It is interesting to see how similar you two are in your…" a quick sly cough, "well, preferences, shall we say… The spitting image of your mother, isn't she?"

A disturbed flare passed over Albus' face.

Riddle looked very pleased with this reaction.

"I was in your mother's head at one point too. Helped me open the Chamber of Secrets in 1992 and nearly kill your father. Charming little girl," Riddle continued gleefully. "But I think I like your version better. Her insides are much more volatile. And oh so tender. "

"Are there any spells that can maim and slaughter a ghost?"

"None," answered the ghost.

"So I have to make one," Albus said, a spark of violence in his eyes, head tilting, not breaking gaze for a second.

Riddle's features contorted in bored disdain. "If you don't bleed to death first..." he said, "You're not as threatening as you might think. …You cannot fool your predecessor, Albus Severus. I invented this game. You are a cheap imitation, nothing more."

"I'm sure Grindelwald thought the same about you."

"I only ever met Grindelwald briefly…I didn't get to kill him…I'm not entirely sure why. History took an odd turn."

Albus leant his head back against the windowsill again and traced a smoky circle with his lips. He watched it float through the air.

"Dumbledore happened," he reminded, corner of his mouth lifting wryly. "My namesake outsmarted the creature, just as he always outsmarted you."

How he enjoyed watching Riddle flare.

"Your namesake was oblivious to the creature's existence," the ghost spat at once, venomous, his revulsion for Dumbledore all too evident. "He was a fool until the very end."

Albus lolled his head lazily around to him.

"But history took an odd turn," he implored. "You said so yourself. What does that mean? It means the creature's will doesn't always prevail. It means he doesn't _always_ win."

The anger unfurled from the ghost's face, and a flash of understanding passed.

Riddle shifted forward, ever so sly, leaning into Albus' ear conspiratorially.

"Speaking of the creature…"

 **—1:43PM—**

Rose shot through a window with her uncle, landing in a dark room.

Her broomstick skid to a wavering stop. Dismounting, she quickly spun to grasp her uncle's lolling body, before scanning the area. No Crows. The room looked like a small study. A few chairs skittered the premises. Charming a most comfortable-looking armchair near, Rose sat her uncle's body down and secured his arms to the sides.

She took a step back. With a crumpled brow, she stared at the Imperiused Harry Potter.

Tom had told her to keep him under, which she felt was unnecessarily cruel. The hard part, transporting him to the castle, was over. She hoped that once Harry saw that he was safe and had support, he would be willing to help save Albus. She felt, in her bones, that her uncle cared for Al's life. It would just take convincing. Of course, there was still the matter of convincing Al to care about Al's life.

Raising her wand, she drew a deep breath and lifted the Imperius Curse.

Her uncle came alive, gasping as if he'd just surfaced from being drowned, fists clenching, eyes bulging as they took in the room. Head drooped to the side for a second in aftershock before reorienting itself. He blinked heavily for several more.

"Will you just talk to Al? If I bring him."

"Nothing I say can make a difference," he grunted blearily.

Her brow knit in hurt. She'd hoped, that once she presented her uncle with all the necessary pieces –the Stone, the son, the current dark lord – that he would help her save Al. If not, if he was too stubborn, then perhaps Tom was right. She was better off keeping him under the Imperius until the deed was done.

"But will you _talk?"_ she demanded, raising her voice this time.

Harry blinked so ferociously at her tone that she shrank back. She could tell he'd found the rudeness appalling, perhaps more so than being having an Unforgivable used on him by his own niece; Even she didn't like hearing that voice from herself.

His Adam's apple bulged as he swallowed. He was deliberating.

Slowly, fearfully, ever so cautiously:

A nod.

"I'll talk to him."

Rose's tense features relaxed and at once she moved at her uncle. She pressed a kiss to his forehead.

"I'm sorry for putting you under the Imperius," she whispered, tears in eyes now.

Her uncle stared in perplexed dismay.

"You're not sane, Rose." He gave a hoarse, dejected laugh. "I had no clue this was how you'd become."

There was no time for further apologies. A terse shout came from the window—"Weasley, move it!"—and she moved fast, yanking the armchair out of way, as more aurors shot into the room, with more graceful landings than her own. In minutes the room was full of near thirty wizards, men and women, who Rose assigned the responsibility of guarding her uncle.

The fortress was slowly overwhelmed by aurors. It was as if the building was being consumed by a multi-headed beast with one brain. They poured in from every window, doorway, and opening imaginable. At the entrance, a battalion shifted to overtake the last wave of Crows which had maintained control.

From atop, the fortress, as grand as it was, looked like a bustling microcosm unto itself. A sprawling miniature city lit up by hundreds upon hundreds of violently moving bodies, brightly colored lights firing in all directions. As broomsticks shattered through glass windows, the cold that had been mild now numbed the face and extremities. The castle became as freezing as the outside, harsh wind cutting through skin and torturously slashing marrow with constant harsh blows. Rapidly firing hexes maintained a modicum of heat. The fortress faced a swift collapse. The grand pillars and statues deteriorated with errant spells. It was chaotic, the battle. There was no organized movement playing the tides, no grand design. A brawl, attacks fluctuated by the minute, victories and losses oscillated between sides. The objective was simple: Kill Graham Paisley.

The man had retreated. He was in hiding.

He had barricaded himself in his private chambers at the topmost level.

Rose moved fast, slick. Ducking below crossfire as she darted from ends of hallways. Dodging the flyaway hexes as she wove her way through heated stand-offs. Locations with too much firing, she got on knees, cast a Concealing charm, and fucking crawled like a cockroach. Head to toe; she scoured the fortress building a mental map while looking for Albus, for Tom, or for the Stone.

A hex spattered with a sting against her thigh, making her skid.

A Crow took a step towards her and rocketed forward. Rose gave a swift dodge, flashing out of his sight, then rebounded with a sharp laceration hex that sliced through his arm. Rose made a dash into the heart of the fortress, overwhelmed by sheer density of bodies.

"Watch out!"

Another Crow flung at her from a stairway with such frightening surprise that she nearly shrieked. He gripped a tight hold at her arm, and jabbed a blade in. The blade fragmented, curling into muscle and began to burn her. Grunting in pain, Rose yanked it out, tossed it aside, and gripped the Crow by the neck with a choking hex. Eyes steely, she brought him to the point of asphyxiation before seceding. He dropped to the floor, unconscious, which was enough. She had no desire to unnecessarily kill.

Twisting down a narrow corridor two Crows attacked her simultaneously—one using hexes to force her into a position that would make her in an easy target and the other trying to take advantage of momentary weakness. Rose acted swiftly. Deflected hexes where needed. She exhausted them to the point of retreat, before swinging forward and casting a freezing enchantment which turned them to sculptures. Frozen bodies clattered to the floor and Rose made a dash out of the network of corridors.

Before she could take a step into the outer hallway, a concentrated puff of smoke wafted against her face. She froze in her tracks as the smoke continued to wash over her like a frigid current. It wasn't directed towards her—it was like a rivulet of it had managed to deviate from the throne room and make its way out to her. She pressed her back against the wall and her grip on her wand tightened.

She breathed. She waited. She thought.

 **—2:14PM—**

As a battle raged, a dialogue took place in whispers.

"I have been thinking… as one has too much time to do when one is dead," Riddle murmured silkily against his ear. "Allowing history to repeat itself can be rather…short-sighted. And so, to the plan set in motion by your father, I am here to propose…a favorable amendment."

"You mentioned a plan. By my father?"

"You already know to what I am referring, do you not?

Albus' eyes narrowed in keen suspicion.

"Perhaps. Explain further."

"Your father had a plan…A grand plan that revolves around the demise of the creature, in which you were—and still are—the main weapon. I suspect this will come as no surprise to you."

Absolute silence.

"Your amendment is not needed, Riddle. History won't be repeating itself under my reign."

"It almost certainly will. Once Cygnus senses the Stone's presence, you will be dead. And you are still only a boy, not even a man—"

 **—2:14PM—**

Rose burst through the door to a small storeroom to find Albus on the floor, mid-conversation with ghost Voldemort, who sat intimately close whispering into his ear.

Her cousin was a mess of red; His eyes were swollen and scarlet blood glazed his jaw, ran over his cheeks, down his neck, and all over his clothes. He looked like he'd been chewed and spat out by a wild animal. His hand clutched at his abdomen, expression screwed in pain, but otherwise he was listening intently to the ghost. It was freakish that he was still somehow conscious.

"I told you to stall, not maim and injure," she said at once.

The similar heads of dark hair looked up.

"I wish it'd been me, pet," Tom spoke first, smiling pleasantly at her. "But I cannot take the credit for this doing. It is the work of your clumsy dark lord."

Albus blinked, still stuck at the word 'pet'.

Mouth opened, then closed.

Eyes narrowed in outrage.

Sensing turmoil, Rose made a swift dash.

She fell on her knees. "You're in shambles." And began casting the appropriate set of healing charms.

Albus sat, observing her with red-rimmed eyes, as she cut away at his clothes to reveal the shadows of a beating on his skin. Blooming purple patches told of internal ruptures, likely organ damage. She lifted his arms, moved around his legs, and adjusted his hips to heal. His rib cage was rejoined, though the bruises would take time. She cast another charm to clean off all the gory blood and fixed his clothes back on.

The finishing touch, she leant in to his face.

At the warm compression of lips, Albus jolted back as if he'd strung by electricity.

Shock colored his features.

"No more kisses," he decreed.

"Yes more kisses," she argued. "We need to make up."

He blinked again, disheveled by the fierceness.

His expression hardened.

She clasped palms at his cheeks to hold him steady and imprinted soothing lips to his rigid scowl.

"You befriended Voldemort, I don't know whether to be pissed or impressed," he growled against her lip mashing.

"It was an accident," she breathed, peppering his swollen lower lip with warm, wet kisses. "He just sort of—wormed his way into my head…He's incredibly persuasive."

"And you couldn't mention it earlier?"

"No time."

"No time between all the kisses?" he said sardonically.

Her mouth, twitching in humor, pressed against his. "I kept getting distracted by your ey—"

An annoyed hand shoved her shoulder.

Rose landed on her bum. He hadn't appreciated the joke. Recovering quickly, she sprung at him, this time into his lap, catching his mouth and kissed him fiercely, coaxingly; She kept a hand twisted in his hair, murmuring three words in a repetitive chant, until he had no choice but to give in.

His head shifted back, hit the wall, became submissive under such forceful affection, "Brothers don't—" His voice broke off, frustrated, between breathy kisses. A wheezing laugh etched to a despairing end. "I have internal bleeding."

"I _fixed_ it."

"He has the Stone too," Tom chimed, all too dryly. "Let's not waste time with frivolities, pet."

Rose halted mid-smooch.

Quickly, she spun and hexed the door behind them locked.

She looked back at Albus, eyes saucer-wide in terror.

His lips, now chapped, coiled in a smug expression. "Want to see my new toy, Rosie Pose?"

Out extended a palm. She stared down at the ghoulishly shining green object, then up at him.

As she reached to touch, he yanked it out of grasp and tucked it back into his pocket.

He glowered again. "You owe me answers," he stated stiffly. "One—How did you know I was looking for the Stone? Where did you obtain this knowledge?"

"Err," Rose said.

"Two—how did you find _Voldemort?_ "

So Tom hadn't revealed that bit to Al. He had played it safe. He knew well this was a dangerous, explosive conversation, and it was impossible to predict just how he would react to the news about his father. Conniving ghost had had all the time in the world and still left it all on her.

Albus waited as she fidgeted about in his lap, staring at her expectantly, impatiently, as she tried to find a suitable segue-way. It was a delicate subject, not to be discussed in the middle of a battle when there was a dark lord lurking about. Unfortunately, now was as good a time as they would ever get.

"What happened was—" Rose began.

The door flew open and they hastily scrambled to their feet as a hex shattered the window and exploded fragmented glass. Dodging, they shielded their faces. Albus lifted his prosthetic arm, pointed it in the other direction, and efficiently fired a sharp arrow-like hex through their assailant's chest. Another hex came and she quickly twisted to dodge but landed on her feet. Crows came pouring into the small room.

"Shields," Albus ordered and she cast an instant blue covering. Hexes fired at an explosively rapid pace. She held her stance, jaw clenched, regenerating their shield near as fast as it was shattered. Albus spent a few seconds deliberating before lifting his arm. He cast a long fiery wisp of magic that swirled slicingly through the air, crackling with electricity. Yanking it at Crow neck-level, he annihilated everyone in the room in one clean sweep.

"Be careful with your magic out there," she panted.

"What?"

There were aurors in the fortress too. She didn't want collateral. "Don't hit the aurors."

A flicker of understanding passed over his face; He gave a terse nod.

They moved fast, swiftly, through the kitchen, through the many corridors, until they were in the large circular room in which a black spiraling stairway curled upwards to many levels. Albus led. She knew, intuitively, where he were heading. She knew whose chamber was at the top.

Wayward hexes flew over their heads, striking at pillars which held the stairway together as they climbed. At once, a particularly sharp blue light fluttered through the air and exploded against the pillar over their heads. Sparks flew everywhere. Albus buried a hand into her hair, pulling her body close, and it was nearly an embrace. Debris rained down on them. Nestled so close she could feel his palpitating heart; It was fear, a very-human fear; The shattering of glass from another near-miss hex and she yelped and a prosthetic hand lifted to cast a shield guarding them from fragments. "I've got to get you out…" Albus breathed. "I've got to think…"

A flash of green came whizzing and Rose quickly dealt it with a deflection charm. It richoeted backwards and exploded against the wall on the the other side of the room.

"Only if you're coming with me," she said.

He fired a set of hexes at a trail of Crows threatening to overtake them. "I've told you I can't leave." There was a frustrated note to his voice.

"I don't want to split up just because the universe wants you to be a dark lord."

"There's no other option."

"We'll—" she started.

"No."

"Okay but what about—"

"Also no."

"So what if we—"

"I've ascertained all the risks already. Every option, every possible timeline where we stick together results in one of us dying," he rattled off in one bitter breath. With that he yanked her arm and sped them up the stairway.

Her brows twisted in frustration as she trudged along. Albus was always calculating risks.

"Wait!"

A searing flash of light shot over their shoulders, and at once Albus twisted against the wall, pulling her close to him. A wave of aurors had emerged below to attack a wave of Crows above. He let her go as the spells ceased for a second and Rose quickly got up against the wall beside him. They maintained this posture as lethal hexes fired back and forth in front of their very noses.

"I hate this," she panted, back flat against the wall, eyes wide. "We're always in the middle of a fight. I can't even talk to you, can I?"

"God hates us," Albus muttered.

"Didn't know you believed."

"I don't," he said tersely, shooting a silvery stream that knocked one of the Crows flat on his face, clearing an avenue to let them move. Rose knew what he meant though. He'd asked about God at Little Norton too. Being in near-death moments so many times made you wonder if there was meaning to all the chaos.

"Turn there," a voice instructed. It was Tom, hovering over them.

He tipped his head towards an intersection of corridors on the floor they had just arrived.

They both fell against the wall, gasping for air, watching and rather envying the silvery ghost figure as he trailed along elegantly, disaffected by the crossfire. He shot a striking smile at Rose. "I'll continue checking the premises." He gave a curt nod at Albus. "Keep the Stone safe."

"Thanks for looking out for us, Tom," Rose breathed in relief.

Albus waited until the ghost was out of sight, before yanking at her sleeve.

"Don't call him Tom…that's _Voldemort_ ," he fumed under his breath.

"But Voldemort isn't his real name."

Albus ignored this, glancing over the corner to check for Crows. It would appear there were many, because he raised his arm and began to systemically fire consecutive Killing Curses.

"He's actually quite helpful," Rose tried.

"I'm sure he's convincing, yes," Albus said icily, busy shooting flashes of green.

"And he's extremely knowledgeable."

"Sure."

"And rather charming when he wants to be."

He glanced back at her. "That so?" His tone edged with incredulity and distaste. "I suspected an intelligence decline from you, but I didn't think it'd be this severe."

Her eyes drew in offense.

"Why do you have to find a way to be an arsehole at every turn," she retaliated, trying to yank her hand from his grip. He didn't let go.

They quickly curved the corner and he halted her, put her against the wall.

"He called you pet," he shot back.

"So what?"

"You _know_ what."

"I don't."

He gave a cruel laugh. "Oh, you do."

"Are you really jealous of a ghost?"

Albus gave a scathing look.

"I've never wanted to kill a ghost more in my life," he hissed. "He's been fucking with your head. You know what he's after. Why haven't you been fending him off with Occulmency?"

"He's been helping."

"He's _Voldemort_."

Just as Albus tried to angrily stalk forward, she yanked him back by the elbow. "C'mhere, we need to make up again."

Scarcely making it a few feet out, he turned. A heat flashed in green eyes and at once he fell against her mouth, pressing her to the wall, kissing her with a muted, heated passion. Her fingers gripped at his hair.

In their peripheral vision, a beam of light, a hex hurtling right at them—Albus tossed it away with an irritated flick of the wrist. His mouth didn't leave hers.

"Don't want Riddle inside you." A growl tore from his throat. "Don't want anyone inside you."

She watched his eyes, flickering more feral than angry.

"Okay," she breathed.

An emotion thrummed in the air, pulsing, straining for release.

"Want you inside me, Al," she murmured at last and he groaned loudly against her mouth. Aching, heavy, starved, it was the most carnal sound she'd ever heard from him. "Fuck—" He pressed against her lips with a fiercer, bruising desperation. " _Fuck_."

The moment never reached full-mast. Another hex flew straight at them and they jolted apart near the last-second, spinning as the spell disoriented them. Rose gripped a table, steadying herself, and shot an infuriated bombarda at the Crow that had ruined the moment. Albus had already shaken off the spell. He was trudging forward, jaw clenched, and she rushed to catch up to him.

"Hold on—"

Ignoring her, his shoulders were firm as he paced. Rose stared, blinking, as her cousin turned the corner, irritably raising his prosthetic arm.

Seconds later, there came an enormous explosion. Smoke and fire rushed out. Thousands of pieces of glass and steel flew back. Alarms—shrill and deafening— erupted.

At once Rose was swarmed by a flock of black-robes washing along her, Crows evacuating out the way of whatever the hell Albus had just done.

Dodging shoulders, trailing after him, she curved the corner.

Her legs nearly caved.

A fist of orange flame had punched its way out of the grand slab doors of Graham Paisley's private quarters. He had broken through the barricade. He was inside.

He was going to kill the Dark Lord.

 **AN Had to cut the update in half. Got too long. This arc will wrap up next chapter.**

 **Harry and Albus** **meeting very soon** :)

 **Reviews keep this operation running.**


	38. Confront pt 2

**—Seven years ago—**

The fourteen-year-old boy sat stonily on the porchstep, skinny legs sprawled, feet buried in puddles.

Their house was dark and silent today, yet this silence was deafening. He wished for the familiar insolence of his loudmouthed family—white noise—but James was quietly consoling their weepy mum, while Albus had mechanically carried red-faced Lily upstairs and already put her to sleep.

A sudden gust of cold wind blew, sending freezing little droplets under the protective cover of his cloak. He sat, with long hollows under eyes, unflinchingly. It was raining yet again. It had poured down for an entire week, sheets and sheets of dejected water flooding the streets, and one had to genuinely wonder if the world was ending.

And perhaps, it was.

His father had been buried today.

 _A business trip._ It had been a lie, a farce, and now the truth was lost to soil and dirt. It was worse than abandonment, it was _betrayal_. Albus felt catatonic. The impulse to cry and grieve wasn't there. Why was he so differently wired? The adults whispered he was disturbed, implored his mother to get him psychiatric help. They tried to get him to show some sort of emotion, beseechingly, sprouting useless platitudes— _Your dad loved you very much._ Why would Albus care about _Love_? It'd never come up before which meant his father thought it irrelevant. And if his father didn't care then neither would _he_.

Albus and his father existed in a realm that was theirs and theirs alone; they transcended such emotions. They shared something _grander_.

 _Faith._

While Albus was not religious, he had read scripture during his more philosophical bouts; The fables of staunch morality had provided no comfort. They did not calm his violently racing mind, plagued with morbid desires—they made him feel more like an aberration; Sick, broken, _wrong_.

There was no God.

[stop lying]

Fine. There was. Of course there was. But _only_ one.

Nihilism was boring. A life without meaning, unappealing. There was a truth he had to find, a grand mystery that only he, a burgeoning powerhouse of magic and brilliance, could resolve. There was a Question that _desperately_ needed answering. His father, though he had always denied answers in childhood—the boy believed so devoutly that this wasn't over.

God, as cruel as he was, couldn't die.

For one, they had not allowed Albus to _see_ the body. He had demanded, interrogated, and they had refused. Too demented a sight for a young boy—excuses. He found secrecy suspicious, always had. Adults were always lying. The dead bodies of his aunt and uncle had seemed odd to him too. He had mentioned his findings to Rosie, but she'd been too overwhelmed to entertain any rational thought.

" _Stop it,_ " she'd hissed at him through the tears, as if he'd committed a grave insult by pointing out that the curls on her mother's corpse seemed suspiciously too dark. "Al, don't do _this_ today."

 _Don't do this today._

What she really meant was: _Al, don't be **you** today._

His objectivity, his observations were pointless. They did not soothe her. He couldn't reach her the way she wanted. It didn't matter; seconds later, her arms were around his neck anyway, and gut-wrenching sobs poured against his chest. The sound was intimate, and resoundingly physical. For all her animosity, for all her _hatred_ of who he intuitively was, she still wanted him, only him. No other would do.

Wizards across the nation came to the Chosen One's memorial. They extolled in worship. Albus did not care for the spectacle. James gave a tearfully soppy speech. The adults patronized the younger son's silence, his refusal to dither to the masses. In truth he had little but his voice, his thoughts, so what was the point? God wasn't listening right then. He was—still—on a business trip. And if He wasn't there, why bother with anyone else?

 **—5:20PM—**

Blood pounded in Rose's ears like war drums signaling a march.

She stared at flame warring metal, hissing smoke. Fire surged around the framework of the gargantuan metallic doorway that her cousin had, in one clean sweep, magically broken past. Renmant sparks shimmered in the frozen air. Albus was now inside the Dark Lord's quarters. He was going to _kill_ him.

Adrenaline sent her senses into overdrive; Grip tightening around wand, she made a mad dash inside.

Mid-step, a rumbling; Eyesight shook as a mini-earthquake rattled the ground, a bright blue shield of enormous proportions surging past the inner entrance of the chamber. With a panic-induced sprint, she pressed up against it.

Albus stood, arm raised, in a stand-off.

Near a dozen vicious knives hovered in the air, rotating in a gleaming circle, primed and aimed at the Dark Lord.

Rose furiously pounded at the shield he'd fashioned with every hex in her arsenal. Not even one worked. She pounded against the shield with her fists now, giving a violent screech. "You _bastard!_ "

To her surprise, both the Dark Lord and Albus gave a sideways glance.

"Bird's got a temper," Paisley chortled heatedly.

"Don't worry, she's talking to me," Albus clarified, before narrowing eyes in focus once more. "Anyway—" The fingers on his prosthetic curled.

The knives jabbed through the air, flying at the Dark Lord with startling velocity.

Paisley leapt to dodge, barely making a sound as he landed on one booted foot and pivoted. Lunging steps took his body forward, a flash of apparition, and he zoomed through the air, casting a voracious surge of magic that lashed out at Albus, who dodged the red light with a reflexive side-step.

A sly smile played on her cousin's face. "Not very impressive without the Stone, are you?"

Paisley, red-faced, seething now, hurled forward once more, vanishing into air, and emerging behind Albus.

"Six-o-clock," she shouted impulsively. At once, her cousin spun around to the correct position and mechanically slashed through the raging purple light Paisley threw with a counter-jinx. Following this, he hexed the Dark Lord with a fierce _bombarda maxima,_ violently hurling his body into a grand shelf and raining clutter atop him.

"Thanks, Rosie."

"Let me in, you jerk," she hissed.

"What did I say about playing the hero?" he said, irritated now. "This isn't your fight."

Rose gave a frustrated groan. "Let me just—"

Albus was lunging forward. A few quick-paced steps, followed by a snap of apparition, covered the distance between him and Graham Paisley—the man hurled a giant cabinet at him.

Albus swiftly dodged, the wooden hunk exploding to pieces as it blew a colossal chunk out of the wall, and shot a fiery ball of orange flame in turn.

Flames billowed ferociously towards Paisley, reverberating like thunder or a giant machine as they overtook him, engorging him in a whirlwind circle of smoke.

Her ears rang with the Dark Lord's pained screams.

Her cousin, ever so ruthless, was attacking again. He shot another fireball and a shower of sparks erupted catching flame to the carpet and burning multiple surging lines across the room—they spread like hungry serpents devouring the furniture, the statues, the walls, and even the shield keeping her at bay. _Yes,_ she thought, throwing out more hexes, impatiently waiting for flame to simultaneously eat through the blue barrier.

Black smoke consumed the world. She could no longer see Albus or Paisley. A faint rumbling echoed overhead; The airborne aurors were delivering strikes, deteriorating the exterior. Her bones flit with quiet hope. Any moment now, they would invade.

As the blue coating of the shield cracked just enough, Rose slipped inside, at once lost to more smoke. Head swerved stupidly side-to-side to figure out just what the hell was happening. Where was her arsehole cousi—

"Fuck!" Something large and heavy dropped against her shoulder, crumbling her to one knee. She clutched at the spot, face screwed in pain. Eyes flit upward and a realization dawned.

The ceiling had began to fragment. The airstrikes were getting fiercer—

They knew Paisley was in this room.

Large tufts of stone fell, crumbling into the floor, washing it in pebbled-debris.

Her limbs whipped forward to chaotically dodge the raining mineral. Clumps of grit washed her hair and a another large fragment nearly smashed her head in—wand raised, a shield cast in the nick of time.

Flames returned. They somehow burned brighter as dirt conglomerated with the smoke-infused air. Her eyes clenched in stinging from all these different elements. Coughs wheezed out her lungs.

Drawing deep steady breaths, she forced her lids open, and for a second, she swore she could make out the silhouette of her cousin.

At once, a powerful surge of green spellwind blew, throwing her backwards. Sprawled out on her limbs and arse, she stupidly stared upwards, horrified, as the ceiling _tore_ off in its entirety by the force of the spell.

The sky, black and smoky and littered with spell fire, became visible.

This nearly marked a turn in battle. Within seconds, dozens of eyes fell in awe. Broomsticks haphazardly reoriented downwards, Crows and Aurors, hurtling towards the site of the all too exposed Dark Lord—

Rose stared as her cousin surfaced from smoke. His prosthetic arm raised and an aggressively bright purple spell swirled out from the fingertips.

The light expulsed a few feet, then spread in a lateral sheet in all directions, exploding like a firework.

Broomsticks came to violent screeching halt as a large, globular, all-encompassing shield fell over the roofless room

The message was resounding clear:

He would kill the Dark Lord without interference.

They were in the center now, him and Paisley, eyes fixed upon each other as they circled in unison, locked in a vicious synchronous dance.

Hexes—tinged with noxious fumes, _millisecond_ _fast_ —tossed back and forth across the room in frightening alacrity.

The Dark Lord was limping, grunting in pain. Albus paced with his usual sleek impatience, gaze flickering in scrutiny, awaiting a slip-up to exploit.

They drew closer and closer and then it came.

Paisley faltered. His next shield surged too weak.

Albus caught the mistake and threw such an abruptly vicious streak of silver, it tore through the flesh and bone of the Dark Lord's trembling arm. The man recoiled, falling into retreat, trying to muster another blue shield in turn but it was too late.

Hex after hex surged from Al's arm with such brutal efficiency and dexterity that the blue vanished in an instant. And then it was no longer a duel, it was a full-frontal attack; An arrogant display of power, an assertion of control, of superiority.

Broken, bloodied, exhausted, the Dark Lord collapsed backwards just as the floor began to quake—The entire castle would collapse soon. Aurors were overtaking and it would all be over soon.

The creature would surface soon.

The horrifying thought sent desperate energy flooding Rose's veins. She sprawled to her feet with a grunt, feet _slamming_ against the floor as she chaotically barged at the fallen Dark Lord. Limbs rattled. Blood pulsed at her temples. Lungs desperately sought air as she staggered over flame, heading with swift, break-neck speed to—

"Stop it." Albus barked. A spell wrapped her forearm, fiercely yanking her backwards as her wand rose to deliver the killing blow.

She skid against the floor but lifted, panting heatedly. Covered in soot and grime.

Ally or not, she knew that in moments of focused fury, Albus was utterly ruthless. And she knew just how to piss him off.

He fixed her a stern glare. "You don't kill him," he decreed, as if it were law. His shoulders remained tense.

Rose pointed her wand, taking the authoritative stance of an auror. "Neither do you," she shouted. "Stand down. It's a fucking _order_ now."

Nearly instantaneously, her cousin's eyes blazed alive. Chin jutting in defiance, he peered at her sharply.

Of course: he couldn't resist the impulse.

A too-quick _carpe retractum_ was cast to wrap her limbs—she drew a shield in swift time to dissuade it. He cast the second one even faster—also deterred as she leapt back.

"Let me save you Al," she panted imploringly, landing to her feet. "I fucking love you."

Albus did not falter.

She desperately threw a binding charm, and he dodged with far too much ease. They weren't trying to hurt; They were trying to guard, prevent; Tom had said whoever killed the Dark Lord would pay a fine price.

His eyes flashed with panic as her next charm swung too close to disorienting him.

"Stop it," he panted, an overwhelmed twinge to his voice now. "This isn't going to go the way you—"

She shot such an abrupt silvery charm, it nipped him at the shoulder, throwing him off pace.

He recovered near immediately. A hex yanked her by the arm, twisting her body around so that she was facing him. He grabbed her by the waist, yanked her flush to him. In the oddest mesh of affection and rage, he fiercely kissed her forehead before throwing her back on her feet.

His prosthetic rose to curl his fingers and a hex exploded a corner of his large shield which blockaded the doorway.

"Go now," he said, with a brotherly authority.

His actions had a counter effect. Aurors, dozens and dozens, were pouring into the room now, and Rose, panting heatedly, did not budge a single fucking inch. He threw another swift shield to block the aurors and another hex to dispel her backwards, behind the barrier. She leapt to dodge the flash of blue, landing with ease on her feet.

With a swift crackling, Albus vanished mid-air and apparated a few feet away, turning his dark gaze toward the wounded Paisley.

Her pulse picked up. Rose made a wild, frantic dash.

"Albus _no_ —!"

He moved far before she could make it, travelling so fast, vanishing into thin air in a flash and flash and flash, then appearing in front of Paisley, shoving him back. The Dark Lord's injured body crumpled with a pained thud to the ground. Silvery wisps emerged out the end of fingertips to seal the him in a full-body cast, the limbs encased together, the mouth embalmed: mummified.

Without looking up, Albus raised a hand in her direction as well. A ropelike enchantment overcame her own limbs, bound her, and froze her. Rose collapsed to the ground, squirming against the binds. It was no use. She could only watch at her cousin prepared to kill the Dark Lord—she stared in horror as his prosthetic hand rose to deliver the final blow.

"Please," she heard herself whimper.

At the pain in her voice, the arm froze. His eyes squeezed shut.

"Promise me you'll leave England," he breathed.

"You know fucking well I won't."

His brow etched. He turned to her with a burning gaze.

"Don't be stupid."

"You're stupid," she cried in anger. "How could you want this? History's fucked, Al. Every dark lord dies, you've got to see that."

His eyes widened with uncalculated alarm: How could she possibly know this?

He must've decided it didn't matter, because he turned back at the Dark Lord.

"I'll handle it when the time comes." His voice was tight, but wavering. "I have plans."

"Charming, you think you're the first one ever to have plans," Tom's voice rang, acerbically. The dead Dark Lord was hovering somewhere above them, slyly invisible, watching it all unfold.

"Rose; Now would be the perfect time to tell him, pet."

Her chest tightened with anxiety.

Since she and Al had reunited, they'd been in a twilight, putting off conversations they were meant to have, avoiding explanations—trying to keep the other unburdened of painful knowledge. This was her fault. She'd procrastinated from fear and time had slipped. This was the wrong place to bring up Harry, but once Al killed the Dark Lord it was all over. The shields would fall, the creature would surface in minutes, and everything would be lost—she had to say it. She had to swallow her fear and _grit_ those words out.

"Wait—!" At her ear-splitting shriek, the outline of a rising arm halted once more—the throbbing pressure against her chest dampened slightly. He was trying to delay the killing too. It meant he knew what came next, and he didn't want it. She _hoped_ that was what it meant.

"Your dad. He's alive," she burst, at last.

The air froze. Time itself felt frozen. Albus, shoulders tensed, did not move a muscle.

Blood-stained tears trailed her face.

"I swear on Hugo's life," she cried. "I found Harry. He's here. I made him come help...I put him under the Imperius—I'll prove it.

Tom had been right; this was the perfect time to do it.

The prosthetic arm swung limp to his side, boneless.

Everyone—near a hundred aurors—watched as the boy who had single-handedly brought the Dark Lord _dead to arms_ strode away from the bound body.

Towering over her, the dark silhouette extended out a hand.

"Prove it." His voice was cold.

 **—6:27PM—**

" _Listen_ to me."

She tried to keep up as he paced fervently down the corridor.

"I know about everything. I know about the creature. This is the plan— Harry can use the Stone. He can fend off the creature when he comes— _Look_ at me, Albus—"

Albus wasn't looking, Albus wasn't thinking about plans and schemes, Albus was in another dimension.

Their footsteps came to halt in front of the line of aurors guarding the room.

"Leave," he said, but without the hardness that filled his voice when he issued inviolable commands.

The aurors did not move.

Rose gave a nod in affirmation, and they dispersed.

Albus didn't enter at once. She tried to grip his arm and he moved away impatiently to the adjacent wall and leaned against it.

Almost immediately he paced again, away from the room, down the corridor. Seconds later, he paused. He turned to come back, changed his mind and stood there, shoving hands in pockets. In the small space he was desperate in his movements, as though suffocating.

He took his hands from his pockets and agitatedly smoothed the hair at the back of his neck. Then he rested his hands on his hips. Then he let them drop. It took all this time, all this movement, for Rose to realize that not only was he angry; He was very, very _overwhelmed_.

"Al—"

"I want to break his neck."

These words cut a chill down her tendons. But at the height of mania, it was foolish to reason with Al or try to reassure him. This _had_ to come out. Even offering advice now could be provocative. So she waited.

He did not raise his voice, though it was straining with contempt.

"Does he have any _idea_ —"

"I don't know."

She'd thought about this conversation many times in the past few days, like a child anticipating a beating. Now it was happening at last, and it was as if she wasn't quite here. She was watching from far away and she was numb. But she knew how much all this would hurt later.

She watched him fight it—that emotion he did not want witnessed. Muscles in his throat tensed. His eyes were ice-cold, and he swallowed hard several times, trying to push down the mounting, intensifying fury. She had learned from what little she knew, the tiny, next-to-nothing scraps about Al and Harry's relationship, that there was nothing she could do. She'd never fully understand what was driving this turmoil.

Bracing herself, she took a step forward and placing her hands on his shoulders. Immediately he turned his face away from her.

"Al please," she murmured. "Look at me."

Now with two hands she gripped his cheeks tightly, and with an effort she turned his face and drew it toward her own. At last he was looking into her eyes, but still she kept her grip on his cheeks. She pulled him closer, drawing him into her gaze.

"I'll come in with—"

"I need to see him alone."

She gave a cautious but understanding nod. He took a deep, fuming breath which he released slowly, still seething, as she relaxed her grip and withdrew her hands from his face. She took a wavering step back.

"He was under the Imperius. It was the only way I could bring him. But I've taken it—"

The door slammed shut as Albus abruptly stormed inside.

"—off," Rose finished, with a shaking sigh.

 **—6:37PM—**

To Harry, it was simple...Magic was _God_.

Real, proper genius came seldom in their world, and when it did, rarely was it given the proper attention. His son had received all the proper attention to flourish, to become the right wizard.

Standing a room's length away now, he stood. A grown man.

He was...thinner than Harry had envisioned. He lacked musculature. The cheeks were hollow but the eyes were tight with focus. Harry saw hunger in them. His strength came from deprivation. A monk.

He stood tall, with firm shoulders, to conceal his physical weakness. His stance: combative, offensive, a duelist's stance. A fighter.

The boyish looks had worn from scars, but the handsomeness was still there. He looked older than his age. He held a commanding presence without uttering a single word. A leader.

He looked, above all, powerful.

 **—6:37PM—**

"Hello Dad."

"Hi son," responded the gravelly voice that he could've picked out in a hall full of thousands.

"How did the business trip go? Lasted an awfully long time didn't it?"

His father, sitting on the other side of the dark room, actually had the nerve to chuckle.

"You could say that," came the murmured response. "Look at you…So tall. Good looking too. Puberty served you well."

Albus, shoulders sharp, covered head to toe in blood, tilted his head to the side, observing at the shrouded figure with a predatory gleam.

"So how did school go?"

The question threw Albus. He stared unblinkingly, as if trying to hash out the answer to two and two. But eventually, the numbers made 'four' in his mind again—a creeping smirk appeared on his face as it clicked together, and _oh,_ he found the answer so very amusing.

So they were playing _that_ game again.

Fine, then. For old time's sake.

In all his vehement fury, Albus strode over. He insolently yanked over a chair, sprawled out across the back, and made an arrogant show of fishing a cigarette out of his pocket.

"Went fantastic. Straight Os," he said conversationally, clasping the cig between his lips as he lit it. "But I got bored—So I had Hogwarts shut down."

He shot a sharp leering look at his father, as if to say: _Your turn._

"I see," came the reply, the voice slow, deliberately calm. His father's expression was vexingly unfathomable. "And your mother, how is she?"

"Also fantastic. The bitch kicked me when I was sixteen."

"You didn't lay a hand on your mother when this happened, did you?"

Mid-drag, Albus glanced up at the genuine terseness of the question.

"I didn't assault my mum, no," he chuckled darkly, releasing a cloud of smoke from the edge of his lips.

"I'm glad to hear it," said his father, sounding thankful. His relief was so infuriating that it made Albus wish he'd lied and said he had.

"She snapped my wand, though. Did you know that? Left me to fend for myself on the streets without magic." He felt himself fuming just at the memory of it.

His father did not respond for a second, watching him carefully. "And you managed, didn't you?"

Albus felt his gut seize. At once came flooding the awful memories of countless nights spent fending off thieves and being used by prostitutes. But he didn't want to bring up his own exploitation. "Do you want to know what happened after that?" he continued, his voice raising slightly, though maintaining the same tone. "I sought out the man called Ollivander. Perhaps you know of him?"

His father leant back in his armchair, indicating that he should continue.

"And you know what he told me, _Dad_?" Albus spoke with a cold gleaming in his eye. "He informed me of what you were after – the manifest of magic."

"Did he now?"

Albus stared at the man, eyes growing sharp. He sat up, stiff, the artificial nonchalance he had managed a few seconds ago gone.

"You wanted me to find him. You wanted me to know, didn't you? You set it up so that I would go looking for him," Albus said, glaring. "You _told_ Mum to kick me out and snap my wand. Just a few days before I turned of age. So I couldn't be Traced. It was so precise, so deliberate. And she always resented me—all she needed was an excuse. Did you really think I wouldn't figure it out?"

"I wanted you to figure it out, Albus, I'd always known you would," his father said— _assured_. "I did not want you to be complacent. You'll find not much has passed in your life without me knowing."

Albus scowled in a blatant show of skepticism.

"Rose Pose dug up your wand. Did you plan that too?"

"I anticipated one of you would... Rose has always been a clever girl."

"We used it to retrace your steps. We found the shack. We destroyed it. We went to the graveyard. I had to kill myself. We found _their_ bodies."

Harry leant forward now.

"And what did you learn from the bodies?"

"Clean deaths, no spell wounds or bodily disfigurations," Albus recited without any inflection, glaring coldly at the man. "They were unharmed yet dead. Yet it bore no signs of the Unforgivable Curse. It was as if they'd had the life sucked out of them."

"Life or…" Harry let the query trail, as if he was a professor trying to lead his student to the answer.

Albus leant in with a bitter smirk. " _Magic_ ," he gritted his teeth. "Because that's what he feeds on, isn't it? That's what he wants." The Stone, tucked away in his pocket, seemed to burn against his upper thigh.

Harry nodded, as if all this was textbook. "And what happened next?"

"Well, he found me, of course. Like you wanted him to."

"And how did you get his attention?"

Albus leant back slightly in the chair, folding his arms, and smiled blackly. "I just had to kill enough people."

Harry did not falter in the face of this information. "Makes sense. He feeds on magical deaths. So how did it go?

"He taught me wandless magic. Turned out I didn't need my wand after all."

"Magic is in the wizard, not the wand," his father recited the old adage, making Albus' brow twitch in irritation. "I've always told you that, haven't I?"

Albus scowled petulantly.

"Funny how all that worked out," his father said, evenly. "And what was the deal you made with him?"

Albus maintained his cold stare. "That I would keep what I kill," he stated, with unflinching objectivity.

"And now you're here," Harry said, leaning in to observe his son closely.

Albus smirked, tossing his cigarette to lean in as well.

"And now I'm here," he echoed.

A hand extended to pat his thigh—curt, but warm. A half-gesture. In the past, even brief physical contact from his father would've calmed him; Now it _alarmed_.

A flinch and his leg quickly lurched away. A slip of weakness. He pretended to be scratching an itch, but it was too late.

His father stared back knowingly, with unsettlingly warm eyes. He had noticed; _Of course_ he had. He did not even need Legilimency. He had always noted Albus' behavior, even as a young boy, all the cracks, as slight and peculiar and irrational they were. A gesture as small as a _knowing look_ from his father was enough to sink Albus' demeanor, deflate him back to the tentativeness of a prepubescent boy.

Albus' mouth tasted ash. His wit failed. The sharp tongue couldn't find his next mode of inquiry. He had so many different things racing through his mind, a thousand combative statements to fling, a million impressive assertions to make; he was easily the most brilliant mind of his generation; how quickly his God reduced to him to _nothing_.

Instead of trying, Albus momentarily gave up. He sat back and stared hollowly, coldly, with beaten eyes, waiting for his father to speak. It was his turn, after all. That was how they played this game.

His father didn't fail to pick up the slack.

"You made it far, Albus. I'm impressed...You've become a formidable wizard. I really couldn't be more proud," he said assuringly, his voice filled with so much genuine _fatherly_ praise that it made Albus' chest ache.

It was not a pleasant ache.

When he was younger, it had been. A younger Albus had _yearned_ for his father's honest approval, even a word of acknowledgement, as sparsely as it was given. He had wanted praise so badly he might've _died_ for it. But now, all the mental expectations of this long-awaited moment seemed turned to dust, and this older Albus wanted...well, he didn't know.

His father seemed privy to his mental dysfunction, because he spoke again.

"And no school girlfriends?" The man queried, with a rather hilarious seriousness, raising an expectant brow at his son.

Albus blinked, so utterly caught off guard, mind struggling to reorient itself to this odd reality inflicted upon him.

More stupid questions. More playing roles.

"Uhm." An absent hand rose to sweep bloodied hair off his forehead. "No school girlfriends."

"Good." His father's mouth twitched as if he'd already known. "You've always been a very good-looking boy, so I worried." A moment later, he added: "Rape is an unnecessary violence."

Of course. This is what his father was really trying to gauge. He feared him a rapist. Since the boggart in the graveyard, Albus had wondered the same about himself. It was a sound conclusion based on reasonable conjecture.

At once, Albus' wrath returned. He _yearned_ to upset his father, to offend him in some way.

"Only necessary violence," he assured with a bitter edge, leaning in so that he was nearly on the verge of snapping the back of the chair. "Speaking of, would you like to know what I've been up to today Dad?"

Harry winced, as if he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to. But then, he leant in as well. "Do tell, son."

"I chopped off the Dark Lord's hand."

"And did you enjoy it?" His father questioned as if as he were asking whether Albus had enjoyed his trip to Hogsmeade.

Albus smiled viciously. "Most fun I've had in a long time. I can't wait to do it again."

He watched his father's face, the muscles twitching as if trying not to etch with disapproval. It was too late. The forehead wrinkled with deep furrows and the smoky bags around the eyes coiled tighter; the concerned weariness, the _emotion_ , began to seep through the objective posturing. Albus had known it would. He knew how to break his God.

"Let's not make muggle brutality a habit," his father said, voice now stern. "There are more eloquent ways to get what you want. You have magic for a reason."

Albus could've scoffed.

Here was his father, lecturing him about the eloquence of murder. What an inane application of morality. Secretly, Albus thought muggle violence was much more fascinating. Muggles themselves were fascinating. How brutal they were, how honest in their savagery. The wizarding world had much to learn from them.

"I found it, by the way. That thing Ollivander mentioned. That you were looking for, all those years ago."

He retrieved the Stone from his pocket.

Harry stared at it.

"Hand it to me, Albus, please." Urgency had entered his father's voice.

Albus stared in disbelief.

"That's what you have to say to me, is it?" he said, laughing incredulously. "After so long."

Harry gave a pained, all too visible flinch, letting Albus know their posturing game had been abandoned. This was his father, the hero, real and moral and true.

"We can talk more later, Albus. This isn't the time—"

"No."

The desire to make his father suffer, somehow, in that moment, took precedence over all else. Albus stood and kicked his chair away. He raised the Stone in the air. He pointed his prosthetic arm, a fiendfyre flame emerging from his fingertips. He didn't even know if fiendfyre could destroy it. It didn't matter.

"You want it that badly? It's what you deserve."

His father gave an aghast look, jaw dropping.

Albus smirked in triumph.

At last: the reaction he wanted.

But the horror quickly maneuvered into itself to a determined stare.

"You'd never," his father said, with stern confidence.

"You know me that well?"

"I know what matters most to you, yes, Albus. And that thing is, has always been, and will _always_ be, magic."

A pause stretched.

His bluff caught, Albus petulantly blew out the flame.

"So why would I give it to you?" His voice was quiet, but there was a lethal timber to it. "It belongs to me. I chopped a hand for it."

His father looked troubled at these words.

"The Stone belongs to all of wizardkind. It is all of us—"

"I don't want platitudes."

"Then tell me what you want, son."

Albus blinked. In truth he had never thought this moment would happen.

"I... want to make you hurt. I dreamt of vengeance for years."

As if to prove his point, he redirected his prosthetic arm. Harry observed it in silent remorse, but he didn't look fearful. Why not? He had to know it was a gift from his old friend, the creature.

"You want to kill your own father?" Disappointment was seeping through Harry's tone. Albus had known it would, and still it infuriated him

"Why not?" he barked, rabid now. "You think I'm above it?"

In the face of yelling, his father's features switched again. This time, he wore a terse, brave look.

"I know you're not above it," he said, evenly, and Albus' eyes faltered. "I raised you so you wouldn't be."

The Stone—valuable beyond anything else—nearly slipped from Albus' quivering fingers. He recovered fast, gripping it tightly, tucking it away. It didn't matter; the rage, the violent mania, moment of vengeance was lost.

 _I raised you so you wouldn't be._

 ** _I_** _raised **you**_

How these words _burned_ him. Albus stared fixedly, miserably at the man. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

Instead: a whimper.

His father's brows raised in surprise. Neither of them had ever heard that sound from Albus before.

A psyche shattered, Albus felt his mind sink. He felt naked under his father's level stare. He'd begun to feel frail. At once, like a child, he wanted to storm the room. He wanted Rosie's arms around him, the warm pressure of her lips occupying him. He wanted to rut and rut against her until—

[ _stop_ ]

Running away could not happen. Albus needed to follow through. His father wanted the maelstrom of a mind put before him, he wanted the _monster._

Well, he'd have it.

At once Albus lurched forward, gripping the siderests of his father's armchair, violently skidding the piece of furniture against the wall.

"You gave me _fantasies_ about killing you, _do you know that?!_ " he growled directly into his father's face, all his murderous fury rising at once. "I dreamt about _strangling_ you as a child."

No flinch, no fear; what he recieved for his efforts was a sad, quiet stare. Hovering so close, his father looked skeletal, frail.

Slowly, a thin, trembling hand rose through the air. It came to rest against his sharp, bruised cheek in odd affection. Warmth permeated from the palm; His father had never touched him like this before. This was not their usual half-gesture. _No one_ outside Rose touched him like this.

"I don't doubt I've given you nightmares," came the voice, hoarse, broken. "There are a thousand apologies you deserve, Albus. But I know they won't matter."

Pain. This new emotion was pain— _agony_. Albus felt a strange stinging behind his eyeballs. His face tilted to the side, flinching off the soft hand; Lashes fluttered trying to keep something at bay. He didn't know what. Something inside him began to ache, for the first time.

Overwhelmed, deciding he couldn't bear to look at his father so close, that he didn't _want_ to, he staggered to his feet. Backed away in caution, no longer certain who was predator and prey.

His prosthetic arm rose, without thought, aiming onto the man in threat. A flash of light, the armchair fell over, and he had his father hovering in the air. With a swing of the arm, he had him violently pinned to the wall.

"You're right, apologies won't matter," he said in his usual objective tone, trailing over to glare at his father in the face from his new position of superiority. "I don't know why she brought you here–You're the same as ever. Old, vague, completely senile."

"She thought I could persuade you out of it," his father said, quietly, observing his demeanor. "I told her you were beyond that. That you wouldn't listen."

His mouth curled to a half-sneer.

"You don't want me to listen," he noted coldly. "You don't want to persuade me out of anything. You want me to keep going."

"Of course," his father said wearily. "Cygnus must be killed, you understand that better than anyone. You're the only one capable of it. You made it this far. You have the Stone. Let's get through today and I'll teach you how to use it. You can finish this Albus. Put an end to centuries of magical chaos "

"And why should I continue to play _your_ game?"

"Because it's not about me, it's about what's _bigger_. Don't you see that?"

Albus glared. Twenty-one years of his life hadn't been enough? His father had the nerve to demand _more_?

"And how does any of this benefit _me_?"

"You get to save magic. You get to wield magic beyond your wildest dreams. You get to do things no wizard has ever done before," insisted the weary voice. "These are all things you've always wanted. This is what you _want_."

These words made his shoulders falter. It had always been about magic. All of it. From the very beginning. Hadn't it? He'd passed a childhood in obsession, training morning to night, doing everything in the pursuit of magic. To come so far, to fall so _deep_ , and—

And then what?

"I want to _kill_ you," Albus seethed, relinquishing his body to the floor. His prosthetic raised, pointed at the man again. "Tell me why I shouldn't. Convince me, " he commanded.

"There's no good reason why you shouldn't."

Albus blinked excessively.

"Won't even try to dissuade me?" His voice broke. "Have such little hope in your son, do you?"

"I have complete hope in my son," Harry reassured, clenching his eyes, awaiting the blow. "If you need to kill me to unburden your mind, then do it. I only want you to go forth and succeed, Albus."

Another floodgate of pain opened. What was this ache? What form of manipulation was this?

At once, Albus pulled the Stone from his pocket and let it voluntarily roll out of his hand, clattering to the ground.

His father stared down for a shocked second.

Then, Harry relinquished a sigh of relief and took the Stone. "Thank you, for understanding," was all he said.

Albus stared, hollowly, as if he were looking through the man at the floor.

"It's yours. Kill the creature with it yourself."

A pause.

"Oh, you need me to do that? I may as well do everything. I may as well lose my other arm too. Let's hope he tears my head off instead and grants me a fast, merciful death," Albus hissed, unable to manage his usual lethality. His voice shook too much.

Harry's brows contorted in hurt.

"You're not going to fail and you're not going to die," he promised.

Albus stared down hollowly.

"I'm going to die," he intoned, monotonous now. It was fact. He had already ascertained every possible timeline. "Whether or not I fail...I _am_ going to die."

"Albus…"

"Ready the Stone." He paced toward the door, not wanting to be there any longer. "The shields will drop once I kill the Dark Lord. The creature will surface to take me. If there's a way to severely injure him right now, it will save me a lot of work later—How long do you need?"

"An few hours."

"Just alert me."

"Prepare yourself, son. Steel your nerves."

Albus paused at the door. Head bent, fist clenched painfully around knob, he waited for more. He wasn't sure what he wanted to hear. But he wanted something different than what he had received. He had dreamt of this moment for years.

"I used to have a thousand questions for you. Do you know that?"

He heard himself whisper, eyes squeezed. A confession in the final second of fragility. But it was not really a confession, more a statement. A defeated fact. His father had won and drawn Albus too far out of his element. He felt that odd burning behind his eyes again and no longer knew what to do with himself.

He glanced up, desperate.

But his father wasn't paying attention anymore.

The older, ingenious mess of dark hair was bent in concentration, testing the Stone's volatility; Fingers elicited a small zap; Harry curled his wrist, and a spark of light zinged; It pinged against the stone wall, rebounded, and set a cabinet aflame; The utterance of a spell under breath and another light shone from the Stone, vanishing the flames.

His father was preoccupied.

Already on another business trip.

And that was when, finally, _finally_ , after twenty-one years, it clicked.

Something—a faith, a heart, a _god_ —died as the son stalked out the room, hands buried in pockets, head bent in dejection.

He no longer wanted answers.

 **—7:10PM—**

Everything was decimated.

Plumes of smoke rose from the ashes. Broken battlement stones littered the castle ground, as washed out as the sky, one grey leaching into the other and each just as frigid without the sun. The granite was slick under the constant haze. Even the snow and grit outside had become enmeshed with raw pink flesh and was spotted with the blood of carcasses.

They were too many questions that needed answers, that required explanations; It didn't matter.

"We have the weapon," Rose tersely informed, walking—limping—alongside the Head. "My uncle is handling it right now. We need to evacuate the castle."

"I want to speak to him."

"It's best not to distract him right now."

She gave only the basics. Information to quell. They had the weapon. Her uncle was the only one who could dismantle it. It was necessary to keep the Crime Lord alive until a certain moment. He would be killed soon. She knew well these weren't acceptable answers. To trust in her blindly would require an incredible leap of faith.

The Head stared down at the bloodied, raggedy blond head of the bound man, Graham Paisley. The Dark Lord, beaten and unconscious, did not look the slightest bit threatening. Without the Stone and without his wand, which Rose had quickly secured away (for it held a piece of the Stone, and that made it incredibly dangerous), he was just an ordinary criminal. Less than that, they'd quickly uncovered that he was a _muggle_. This was information no one knew what to do with yet.

"No Azkaban sentence. No court pleas. He's committed atrocious crimes against our world. I want him dead, Weasley."

"I agree, sir. He will be."

"I won't report to the ICW until I have received confirmation he's been properly executed."

Rose turned and looked up at the Head, unfalteringly.

"Do you trust me?" she quipped.

The Head regarded her annoyedly.

"Would I be here if I didn't?

"Have I ever let you down? Have I ever disappointed?"

"Never."

"So you trust me to do what's right?"

The Head chuckled. "No," he said. "Not to do what's right." He turned to watch as aurors excavated survivors from the rubble. A few minutes later, a long line of arrested Crows, flanked with aurors at both sides, crossed in a uniform line, headed out the entrance. The prisoners looked dirtied, bruised, dead-eyed. Exchanging a nod with the leading auror, the Head took out a carton of cigars and unthinkingly passed one over to her.

Rose accepted. She lit it and inhaled. It stung a little, and she gave a violent cough. There was already so much smoke in the air. The Head patted her roughly on her bruised back, watching another wave of aurors carry injured bodies out the front entrance.

"Who was that boy, Weasley? Who brought Paisley down. He wasn't one of the aurors. "

Everyone had seen the way Al had dismantled the Dark Lord. There was no point keeping her cousin a secret anymore. He was about to become—deservedly—world famous.

"That was Albus Potter."

The Head blinked in awe. "He's brilliant. His spellmanship... it's godly. I've never magic like that before. Tell him he has a prosperous career as an Auror, or a trainer, or whatever the hell he wants."

"I don't think he's interested."

"Then what is he interested in?" the Head said keenly. "I'll give him whatever he wants. Money's no issue. I want to make him useful. The restoration process will take a few years and I want a brain like that on my team."

Rose gave a broken, little laugh. "I think Al needs a long break after this," she murmured. "With lots of peace and quiet." And kisses.

The Head seemed momentarily preoccupied by an evacuating wave of aurors.

"Anyway Weasley, back to your question." He cleared his throat. "Can I trust you?"

"To do what's right?"

"Not what I'm asking...Can _I_ trust _you_?"

A surge of realization passed through Rose. "Always, sir." She nodded eagerly.

"I still have a lot of questions."

"I'll answer them all when this is over."

"And Harry Potter…being alive...that's a full conversation on its own."

Rose was quiet again. She took a deep breath.

"There's something out there... It's hard to..." How could she possibly explain the creature to an outsider? She tried a different approach. "It will worry the public. And we have to show strength, sir. We have to take back our country."

"Do you want me to stay back with you, the boy, and your uncle, Weasley?"

"We can't risk you dying, sir. Our country needs a strong leader." After a second, she added: "I don't matter."

"In a symbolic sense—"

"Outside of it. The Ressurectionist, it's just an idea. It's just a word. It's not even mine. It's yours. I'm no one," she said, her voice quiet.

The Head's eyes flickered with an odd emotion. His large hand came to rest against her wounded shoulder. It was not fatherly. It was the way a king would knight a young soldier.

"Very well. I'll try to quell the political circus before it begins. I want you to bring them in after this, the four of us need to talk. Your uncle owes the Ministry a lot of explanations."

Nodding in solemn obedience, she made to leave.

"One more thing, Weasley."

"Sir?"

"Don't die. I don't want to do the damn paperwork. And..." He paused. " I just don't want that."

The ends of Rose's mouth curved to a slight, sad smile.

"Understood, sir."

 **—7:28PM—**

"I'm surprised you didn't kill him," a voice called, low and all too slippery.

Albus, sitting quietly along one of the destroyed fountains in Paisley's halls, glanced up. He then wished he hadn't.

"I was almost certain you would. You would have had every right to," Riddle remarked, floating down the stairs with a leisured ease. "I killed my father when I was seventeen. I burned his house. And my entire family on my father's side..." He trailed off, deep in some idle thought. "That is beside the point."

Albus gave a dry, abject laugh. "Did it help?"

"Help what?"

Voldemort didn't understand the question. Albus wasn't sure why he asked it in the first place.

"So why didn't you kill him?"

"Are you so petty that you still want my father dead, Riddle?"

The ghost's face contorted with offense. "Who said that's what I wanted? I have no interest in killing Potter anymore...After all, he is more useful alive, is he not? He can wield the Stone."

Albus, realizing that he didn't actually want to be in a conversation about his father with Lord Voldemort, turned away. His eyeballs continued to sting. The warm imprint of his father's palm continued to burn at his cheek. He stared tiredly, miserably down at the fountain. The pipes had been destroyed in the battle, which made water erupt in brief, sporadic bursts. The soiling surface had yet to recover its tranquility. He put his hand flat upon the layer, as though to quell it.

Riddle, determined to give him no privacy, emerged from the waters and rose to full length in front of him with all the intimidating prowess of a Dark Lord. Albus shot a dead, blunted look which went ignored by the tenacious ghost.

"Have you considered what I proposed in our earlier conversation. My amendment? It would alter things in your favor."

Albus, with drained red-rimmed eyes, took in the ghost's overly friendly demeanor. "My favor," he echoed. His mouth flickered a little, mustering a dry amusement. "You really are too suave."

Riddle, though, seemed pleased at these words. He floated closer with a rather provocative air, eyes gleaming. "Imagine the two of us working together. How easy it would all be."

"You're so sexy, Riddle. I'm a bit overwhelmed."

The slyness now faded and the look of annoyed disdain returned.

"How droll, Albus Severus," he said icily.

Finished with the conversation, Albus turned around. Everything on him, inside and out, ached. He leant against the fountain, giving rest to his weary legs, watching disinterestedly as Riddle swerved to face him again. The ghost stared at him in fierce expectation.

"I didn't like your amendment," Albus sighed, very blunt now. "Too many risks."

"No it isn't." Riddle's eyes sharpened. "It is precisely the same number of risks as your father's plan. Fewer for you, more for her."

"That makes it worse."

"Wouldn't you rather survive all this?"

"Not at her expense."

Riddle returned a glare of stern annoyance.

"This is why I prefer the girl to you," he sneered. "You are stuck in your head. You spend too much time in needless calculation. You think and think and think...whereas she _acts_.

"I'm well aware Rose doesn't think, yes," Albus assented tiredly.

"What you see as weakness is a strength...She is like him, you know. The _creature_. She crossed into the realm of the dead, where she was broken. Rebuilt. She nurses that very same hunger for magic—in due time, with proper instruction, she could kill him."

Albus blinked in exhaustion, his head aching, his mental faculties straining to process all this information but lacking the adequate context to properly dismantle it. There was an eerie magnitude to Riddle's word, a larger problem lurking behind the guise of a poorly-conceived favor. Unlike his cousin, Albus was clever enough to know to never—not even for a _second_ —trust Lord Voldemort no matter how handsome his teenage version happened to be, but even Albus couldn't help but wonder just where this peculiar breadcrumb trail would lead. Just what _would_ happen if Tom Riddle were to get his way?

[store that query]

There were so many kings and gods and villains playing chess with their lives. So many who wanted to weaponize him or his Rose Pose. His father wanted to save the world. Tom Riddle wanted to control it. The Creature—to devour it.

"My point is to say..." Riddle continued, cocking his head. "Let her finish what your father started. It gives you a way out. And a way out is what you want."

"Is it?"

"It is plain to see...It's in your eyes."

A moment of quiet.

Albus stared blearily at the floor.

 **—8:02PM—**

The Castle had emptied.

Limping along orphaned halls to ensure all the living were gone, she observed hollowly at what remained. Here was an untold number of people who did not survive. Every face was marked with red splatter and limbs lay at unnatural angles in the soft evening light. At the sight of such visceral bloodshed, guilt throbbed in her gut, deep and warm. It felt like someone had their hand in there and was squeezing her organs either as gently or as hard as they could.

At last, she found one of the other two living bodies. Her cousin sat quietly along a broken fountain, mid-cigarette. She thought it sort of humorous that he could indulge in smoking even while smoldering fumes expunged from every burnt corner of the demolished fortress.

He noticed her staring. He made a gesture.

She limped over.

Their bruised shoulders bumped as she slid down beside him against the fountain.

Albus was now staring forlornly down at his prosthetic, the only piece of him not covered in injury marks. He inspected the artificial hand for a minute, clenching and unclenching the fingers. "The design is nearly flawless," he murmured, purging a stream of smoke, before looking up at the wall. "I can't really complain. Just wish it wasn't so cold all the time...a bit uncomfortable..."

Her brows pursed in concern. "Can anything be done?"

"Probably not." He maintained his hollow stare at the wall.

She scooted closer. Gripping his hand, she intertwined her warm fingers with his cold ones, overlapping every inch of skin she could.

"Don't leave me again," she said softly. "I'll fall apart, Al. I'm fucked."

The arm twitched in discomfort.

"You're not fucked." His voice was low, strained.

"I am. I won't get past it."

His face turned to look at her.

She'd never seen so much pain on his features.

At once, he pulled her into an embrace. Hand clasping the back of her head, he rested her face against his shoulder, and wrapped his other arm around her shoulders to hold her safely, securely. He felt so warm against the blistering undercurrent of wind. Her body had become so drained under the constant pressure of adrenaline and pain and shock. Being touched and held felt _so...nice._

"Tell me how to fix," he murmured, imprinting a kiss to her cheekbone. "I want to fix it before I go."

She inhaled, as he pressed subsequent kisses. He smelt of smoke and blood. She shook her head though it was faced away, hidden away, bit desperately, her eyes going glassy with tears.

"Can't be fixed," she sniffled.

"Then tell me what to do," he breathed, against her cheek, frustrated now. "I need resolution. Give me one."

"Sorry." She gave a pained, little laugh. "Can't get past it. Can't get past you."

He tilted his head to look at her face, eyes pooling with something hot and volatile. They trailed along her jaw, another kind of awareness pulsing beneath his dark lashes.

"Fine then," he murmured.

He lifted her by the armpits, carried her, deposited her on the nearest table.

A kiss pressed to the shell of her ear, hot breath washing over her. "I've made my Rose Pose very sad. Denied her what she wants. When she's made it so _clear_. Haven't I?" He kissed at her chin wetly, once, twice, then trailed his warm mouth down her neck, and in a near-snarl added, "I'm a shit brother."

Her voice hitched. "It's okay."

A slyly bitter chuckle flooded her ear, his breath burning as he laved her skin, her blood rushing to its surface. His head rolled against her neck, mouth trailing; she felt pink, raw under the press of his lips. Much like before, there was an agony, a misery to it.

A soothing hand lifted to grip at his nape. She wanted to fold him into her body, to make whatever was inflicting him go away.

"Hey Al." Her voice cracked.

He paused.

The dark mess of hair dropped.

It sank and sank, until he was exhaustedly collapsed in her lap, like a young boy.

He did not bury his nose in her crotch. His forehead pressed against her thighs, and she felt the wetness spread through her pants fabric.

Tears.

He did not want her to see. The shoulders trembled. The breathing was shaky, shivery, erratic; he was hyperventilating. He swallowed the labored breaths. Her own heart panged with hurt. She rubbed dotingly at his neck, massaged at his tense-but-weary shoulders, ran consoling fingers in circles through his dirtied hair. Only one force in the universe could've brought her cousin to this.

That force was no dark lord, no magic, no grand evil.

That force was his father.

And that was what it had _always_ been about.

She held Harry's dejected son, safely, sisterly, until he began to calm down.

 **—8:15PM—**

The disheveled head lifted.

He watched her in quiet. Choosing words. He looked cautious.

"I want..." he broke off, bloodshot eyes beating into the floor. "I want a new timeline. With you. Details don't matter as long as we both survive. I've been wracking my brain through every avenue of possibility but I can't—" He clenched his eyelids, miserable. "Can't sort it out. Can't find a way..."

Rose stared at his face. It was splotched with bruises. When he opened his eyes again, they were manic, with hints of fear, like a young man desperate to make a last-minute dash for his life...The talk with his dad had pushed him in a _completely_ different direction.

Leaning in, she confessed against his ear, voice trembling: "If you die, I swear I'll bring you back."

His lips fell open.

After everything that'd happened since the first Resurrection...

"You'd do it again?" He stared at her in a mix of terror and bewilderment. "The consequences—"

"Fuck the consequences."

His face tilted closer, slightly, fearful eyes searching hers, hovering close enough for their lashes to tangle. Warm mouths grazed. "Can't lose you," she murmured, kissing him softly, again and again. "Won't lose you." A promise.

Abruptly he gripped her hand, uncurling all her little fingers.

"What are you—"

His finger began tracing letters at the heart of her teeny wrist. Fast, shaky, anxious. Like they were running out of time. Her breath caught, chest giving rapid butterfly flutters, when she realized what he was spelling. Three words.

 _I... L...O...V...E... Y...O...U_

Tears welled in her eyes.

He looked at her bleakly.

He then looked away.

"There's a chance I might not be killed immediately. I'll just be taken," he spoke again, voice hoarse. "I'll be in the space that's neither here nor there."

"Well," she said, swallowing her unsteady breaths. "I have a plan for that too. I..." she leant in closer to his ear. "Back at the Ministry, I have this friend. An Unspeakable who studies Death. Lorcan Scamander. He's...brilliant, and he can help."

"Newt's grandson," he echoed.

She nodded, arm still wrapped around his neck, combing anxious fingers through his bloodied hair. It felt so very important to touch him as much as possible right now.

"We've been experimenting with how to cross the Veil ...The Veil bridges the worlds of the living and dead ...We've made a lot of progress. I'm expecting we could engineer it to find you. If the creature takes you, I'll cross. I won't stop. I don't care what Harry says. I'll bring you back."

Albus stared at her. Another disturbingly dangerous plan.

"You'd cross the _Veil_ for me?" His voice was an incredulous wheeze.

"You're my best friend, Al. How could I not?"

His eyes, bruised and weary, softened at these words.

He pulled her in for a kiss, a hand holding her chin, an arm wrapping her back to press them together. This was not like before, the angry, self-loathing kisses of ungrown children. This was a real kiss, long and sustained, done with clarity of purpose, between two adults. There was a fragility to it, but there was also a realness.

It was an odd thing, to starve for a face you'd witnessed your entire life. They were starved for so many things.

 **—9:35PM—**

Today was, indeed, the day Graham Paisley would die.

The Castle stood in silent, fragmented gloom. The night stretched on as violet light broke through the scattered ceiling upon the Dark Lord with heightened intensity. All three of them stood over him. The bound Graham Paisley lolled against the floor, not quite conscious but cognizant enough to sense his looming doom. "Please…" he kept pleading brokenly between pitiful sobs. "Evans, please."

Albus, dark hollows hanging under eyes, did not bestow the man with a glance. For all the similarities they may have shared, no emotion was offered in this final moment, no respite, no reprieve. No forgiveness.

He also did not look at his father, who held the Stone.

Also no forgiveness.

"Are you ready, son?"

The question went purposely, painfully, ignored.

Albus' red-rimmed eyes were on her, only on her.

She gave a terse nod, fear drumming against her spine, as he raised his prosthetic arm.

A haunting green light flashed, illuminating the small corner of the room. The Killing Curse shot into the chest of Graham Paisley and the man died oh so silently, oh so non-climactically. The head lolled to the side. The dulled blank eyes stared out into nothingness, into the soundless, motionless, timeless night. The easy part was over.

This moment marked a violent, vibrant lurch in the air.

They sensed it, all three of them.

Not a second could be lost. In a hurried rush, they were back to back, weapons drawn, eyes steely, staring out into the palpable darkness. Her heart pounded in a painful mechanizing motion. They had very little time. Already so much adrenaline was surging through her body that she could scarcely see straight. Al's hand clenched at hers, fingers tracing anxious letters across her right wrist but she couldn't focus on what he was spelling.

 _He has sensed the Stone._ Tom hissed. _Keep your wits about you, girl._

It was just like that whatever was happening throttled up to full thrust, with the spine-tingling scream of the slipstream inside of her living cells frighteningly audible. It was the feeling of immense power unleashed in barely controlled fury, the exhilarating sense of mental stretching past the point of comfort.

 _He is here._

A large crack broke out through the air; it was so loud and inhuman. A sharp red nauseating light infiltrated her senses and she watched in utter horror as an enlarged black nail tore through the empty air as if tearing into their dimension. The light was so burningly bright, so otherworldly, it was as if the hand of God was tearing into their world.

She felt a hand grab her left shoulder and she turned "Uncle Ha—"

It was Albus. Alone. His eyes were colorless, and his face was revoltingly white with shock. She looked below and saw sharp, brutally gnarled talons—the very same as had made a Tear through the air—were ripping, ever so slowly, out of his ribcage. Blood flowed thickly from the wound, dribbling to the floor, splattering against the wooden tiles.

It was as if the creature was _clawing_ out of the Al's body, trying to seize control from within.

Yet Albus stared so intently at her, his expression catatonic, though the brows were twisted with pain. Silent tears streamed out of pitch-black eyes and down his pallid, cadaverous cheeks. It had to be from the pain. He didn't even seem aware of it.

His body shook, and his legs seemed to have trouble supporting his weight. His hand pressed to her shoulder just as his feet shuffled— _skid_. He flopped onto his back. His mouth opened, as if to trying say something to her, but he only got the first syllable out.

"I..."

Blood gushed out with geyser-like ferocity.

Nausea overpowered her body; Stomach sank into her gut. Legs wobbled with the urge to faint. Trembling, yet forcing her muscles alert, she slowly backed away. She felt trapped in a dream-fugue. She was in the graveyard of fears again, only this time she was watching Albus die instead of Hugo. It did not feel real and she was awash with too many emotions to make any sense of it. Where was Harry? Where was Tom? Why was she alone? Why was she suffering this nightmare alone?

 _Zzzzztccchh_

With a searing crackle, the floating talon finished rupturing the air and out of the void that it created—a deep, bright voluminous, pocket-like Tear—flung out another talon. It seized Albus by his neck, sinking claws into soft flesh, yanking him towards the Tear. His mutilated body skid mercilessly across the lacquered floors trailing blood in its wake.

The Creature was taking him.

Rose acted in panicked haste, shooting a spell to grip her cousin by the abdomen. Gritting her teeth, planting her feet on the ground, she _pulled_.

The Tear blazed alive at this disruption, a menacingly roaring twilight abyss. The red surged with an unseemly bright glow.

The attached talon yanked harder, using all its force to take him. More flung out of the Tear, dark demonic claws that traversed the air as a cloud of barely there yellow-tinged gas, solidifying just as they approached Albus, and clamped bloodily, brutally, into his limbs one by one.

Rose, grip just as tight, cast a quick enchantment to nail her feet to the ground.

The mass of tangled taloned limbs, each one armor plated, seeped a cloyingly dark fluid from black pores. Revulsion, the desire to throw up became overwhelmingly poignant, as the black liquid poured out of her cousin's open mouth, the dark fluid cascading to the ground in a gooey bloodied slosh.

The talons pulled even more fiercely, and Rose nearly took a nose dive. The closer she got to the blinding Tear, the more the vicious red light agitated her skin, burning, inflicting with radioactive damage; small painful bumps protruded along her neck and the span of her arms and she gasped out in heated pain. She steadied herself, skidding, all the blood rushing to her head.

Here she was, holding her own against the Creature.

"Well done, Rose," said a hoarse voice behind her.

It was Uncle Harry.

Silent tears streamed down his face as he stepped forward, but he wore a determined look. He was holding the Stone tightly clasped in his palm.

Her agonizing heart soared.

Uttering a quick indiscernable spell, he pointed it up at the Tear. Out shot a vivid beam of green light, zipping through the air to clash against the incandescent void.

The green hissed, fizzled against the red, sparks flying, a white smoke diffusing, as it began to suture the Tear, making it vanish little by little.

"Faster, please," she wheezed out, tears running, blood dripping. Her limbs strained against the spell holding Albus in place. It was breaking her muscle, tearing her clothes and skin.

"A few seconds, Rose," Harry said between panicked, shaky breaths.

The creature, sensing more intrusion, shot another enlarged talon, tearing into blood and bone as he gripped Albus by the nape now, pulling _even harder._

A _craa-ck_

At the sickening snap, a new rush of fear overcame her body. She witnessed in abject horror as the upper half of her cousin's body tore off.

The bloodied head, shoulders, arms, and snapped ribcage fell to the ground.

Irreparable dismemberment.

Bitter tears stung her eyes.

There was no time to waste on her cousin dying before her eyes. There was no physical way to his body, already so damaged, could possibly survive this. She knew this. Albus himself had predicted this—they had to dispel the bigger threat.

Acting in split-second haste, she shot a spell gripping the lower half by the hip bone. Her hands were shaking badly, terror and adrenaline, but she grit her teeth, her legs bending painfully, using all her force to _pull_. She needed the entire body to resurrect him.

Her feet, while they were pinned to the floor by a charm, skid violently again; she held strong. Her hands were bleeding, stained with violent red as she pulled at the spell. Her own bones felt like they might rip out of their sockets. Tom was repeatedly hissing at her to _let go_. She couldn't listen. _Wouldn't_ listen. Years and years had passed, and the one thing she'd never been able to learn to do was _let go_.

So this was her price.

The talons dropped Al's lower body simultaneously. It crumpled on the ground in a disgusting heap of black guts and entrails.

The Creature had switched targets.

There was no time to dodge. They came at her, eight muscular tentacles, wrapping her limbs, gripping her from all angles and pulling—

Rose was yanked through blackness.

x

x

x

Harry finished closing off the Tear, just as his niece fell through it.

x

x

x

His son was cold, unresponsive. Moreso than he had been in life.

The once-handsome face was a greyish color. Smooth skin was now torn muscle and blood, as raw as any carcass at the butchers. Blood flowed, thick and sluggish, from a slash across his gut, spilling out a nest of glistening red snakes.

His limbs were soft; the time of rigor mortis had passed.

"I'm sorry," the father said quietly, through tears. He sat in blood cradling the deformed upper body in his lap as if he were holding an infant. His warm hand pressed to the cold, dead cheek of his son; a tantalizing whole-gesture many years too late.

"Albus, I'm so sorry..."

He lay his son with grave affection unto his back, putting all the severed parts in their proper configuration: Feet together, arms out, head facing upward. The pool of blood that had formed underneath gave a sickly-sweet slaughterhouse odor. His greyed flesh tore in the process of being moved and the eyes stared at a sky they could not see. But there was still a flicker in them, a light, and the father noticed.

In dead bodies, once light winked out of their eyes, they were another carcass to bury. It meant the soul has moved on and the living were left with the task of burial.

His son's soul had not yet passed. It was clinging to the body still, _fighting_ to remain even as wraithlike forces tore into him, threatening to pull him Over. Even in near-death, his son was as obstinate as ever.

That's when Harry made a swift, dangerous decision.

With frail, quivering hands, he removed the Stone. His son's ribcage had been cracked and pried open, the whiteness of the bone shone out in the blood-sea of flesh. He relinquished the Stone inside the cracked, sullied pile of bones and uttered an enchantment, then took a hasty step back.

Wisps of light burst from the Stone, spilling over broken flesh and blood in a suturing fashion.

x

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 _Breaking Prophet Headlines:_

 _Dark Lord Vanquished: Albus Severus Potter Is A National Hero_

 _Blockade Ends: The International Transport System is Bustling Once More!_

 _Britain's Economy Reaches New High in Twenty Years_

 _The Head of Magical Law Enforcement Tapped for Minister Position_

 _Is the Ressurectionist Really Dead?_

 _England's AirForce Security System Reinforced to Prevent Future Attacks_

 _The Chosen One Returns to the Wizarding World: All the Insider Details_

x

x

x

 **—Four Months Later—**

The hospital room in St. Mungo's was as devoid of beauty as one could have imagined. While Harry loathed it, no better option was available. The walls were simply cream, not peeling or dirty, just cream. There was no decoration at all save the limp curtain that separated his son's bed from the three others in there. There were near a dozen stands for monitors and intravenous potion drips which preserved the boy's life. The room had an undertone of bleach and the floor was drearily grey. At the far end were windows in brown metal frames, only openable at the top. Not a single person had brought flowers, cards, or homemade food, although no one had really come to visit his son outside of Malfoy's boy, a rather pale and adamant fellow named Scorpius. And an unnaturally-small Hugo.

Bodily reconstruction was grueling, even with the most powerful magic in the world. While his son's heart beat stubbornly within his chest, his skin and muscle were still so fragile they ruptured on anything more than the softest of touches. The open eyes were not focused but moved randomly, white, obscured with cataract-like coatings so completely that one could not tell his eye color.

Harry applied mild pressure to his son's temple and the hand moved feebly as if to swat him away but missed by many inches.

Still...He was in there

x

 **Bet you weren't expecting this tu** **rn.**

 **How do you guys think the father/son reunion went? The Rose/Al stuff? Our boy getting ripped to shreds?** **Reviews** **inspire faster updates ;)**

 **To LocotusofBorg:** **Thank you for the detailed review! I'm so pleased you enjoyed the action sequence and I'll fix that line about Grindelwald, thank you for pointing it out! To address the point about Harry, he is a changed man to an extent. Canon Harry would certainly never submit his son to this fate. But Canon Harry was also a kid. This Harry has spent a lifetime planning for and evading the creature, he has wizened and embodies a grey morality, perhaps in the way Dumbledore did although darker. He has also suffered a lot of time with the creature in his head, he has seen horror that has broken him and warped his ideals and belief system, and ultimately he feels compelled to protect the future of the wizarding world above all else (Rose serves as a foil here and sorta plays young!Harry because she WILL risk it all for love and family, and we've seen the devastating consequences of that). That said, as the last two scenes signify, this Harry, when given the chance, can and _will_ save his son. There is a lot of unrealized, unspoken affection there—on both ends—even if it is a painful and twisted one. Their adult dynamic will be interesting to write especially now that Albus has started to emotionally crumble. I hope this explanation suffices!**


	39. An interlude (Mr Walker)

**AN: Quick interlude before the next arc! A taste of what's coming next ;)**

 **Also, decided to make a tumblr again for fic writing in case anyone is interested! Not sure how good I'll be about updating it but it's: shezwriter . tumblr . com (without spaces)**

x

The occupational hazard of being a historian was that I knew how everything ended.

I knew there was an Inevitable War in which Scorpius Malfoy played a pivotal role. I knew the Wizarding World lost, and that they lost _everything_.

I knew Rose outlived her cousin.

I knew Mr. Potter died, truly _died_ , at age twenty-six. Five years away on the timeline.

Here was the problem: This…boyish and troubled Mr. Potter…in Rose's memoirs did not make sense to me. He did not match the confident historical figure I had read about; Who had been a cipher, a utilitarian evil, all too masked by a young handsome face that brought pandemonium to England.

But it wasn't just Rose's memories. Mr. Potter's own pensieve recollections were beginning to show …cracks. The instability was becoming more and more prominent. The accounts showed him to be of a deteriorating mental state. We'd had clinicians review his profile. Mr. Potter suffered severe childhood trauma, various psychological disorders, a history of substance abuse, and on top of that he harbored incestuous feelings for his cousin. It was rather a handful.

I was having difficulty deciphering what happened in the time period following the Crime Lord's death. I knew that an unusual—though temporary—peace fell on the Wizarding World. Riots died down. Naturally, crime fell as well. Transportation in and out of England resumed…The Weasley clan returned to their old homes. When they tried to visit Mr. Potter at the hospital, he—being quite bitter—sought out magical restraining orders which would not allow them to enter a five-hundred-meter radius of him. He sought out two restraining orders against his brother James. This was about all I knew.

I decided to ask Rose.

"I wasn't there for all that, Mr. Walker."

"Yes but…" I sighed, tapping the pen on the edge of my notebook. "Mr. Potter's pensieve…he wasn't conscious for a long time. And his early memories are fuzzy. There's a large gap in the timeline…I suppose I'll consult other resources." A pause. "Tell me about Harry Potter."

"My uncle returned to the wizarding world. With the Stone, he cast a large geographical shield to prevent Cygnus from invading anywhere in Western Europe. This was what brought the temporary peace. Harry then tried to reintegrate into the world he had left behind."

"But Albus did not."

She gave a heavy sigh. "My cousin was not…built for peace time, Mr. Walker. He was made for war, for chaos…He was angry and bitter at being left crippled…He was bed bound for a long time…To fall from having so much power to having none at all…He did not know how to handle such a grave change. The year between his twenty-first and twenty-second birthday was the lowest point of his life."

"But he had his father, at last."

"Albus did not forgive easily. It was a confusing time for them both, Mr. Walker."

"Yes but…" I muttered, flipping pages of my notebook. "There's something I still don't understand, Rose. History credits _you_ for the dark lord's demise. Though actually it was Mr. Potter who killed him. So why does history…" I let the question trail and asked another one. "Why did your people change the facts?"

Rose's eyes were inscrutable in the darkness.

"I suspect, because it made for an easier narrative," she replied. "Albus was not a hero in any conventional sense, Mr. Walker. They did not want to give him that victory. He endangered the wizarding world."

"He _saved_ the wizarding world."

"And a year later, he endangered it…He started a war."

I was so very quiet.

Mr. Potter, unlike Voldemort, did not hate muggles. In an odd way, he admired them. He was quite fond of muggle devices; drugs, for instance. He did not belittle their beliefs. He thought their violence was fascinating. He thought them resilient and innovative because they could survive without magic while he could not. For him to start a needless war against the muggle realm did not make sense.

"But the Inevitable War—" I started.

"Not _that_ war. The real one. The war with the Creature."

I blinked, stunned.

"Why?" I whispered.

The old woman's face creased with painful guilt.

"He was heartbroken, Mr. Walker."


	40. Starve

_You'd cross the **Veil** for me?_

 _You're my best friend, Al. How could I not?_

Years—so many had passed, and the most resonating and evident point between them remained unspoken—it was clear...they were a _team_. She'd been a constant in a world of variables...and even with his approaching death—she proved to be the one person that wouldn't abandon him, even if it was the smarter, more logical decision.

The end to their mutual existence was a painful prospect—worsened by the sudden intrusion of a jarringly sharp grip at each limb. He hated assault—being kicked, punched, manhandled—attackers quickly learned that he didn't find physical mutilation amusing, and would often be killed thereafter...but the surprise of this contact overwhelmed him—spine tightened, aching muscles trembled as white-hot pain tore through his body like a needle. Jagged, black, taloned ends cut through skin and blood ran freely in thick scarlet rivers among the hairs of his leg—The internal framework of his body caved... More blood poured, as if from a broken faucet…chest cavity... He wanted Rose to touch him—starved for it—He wanted to be inside her—He wanted to love her—He wanted to fuck her.

A coping mechanism; his mind commandeered pleasant delusions, strained to disassociate—away from the present and immediate pain—as it did in times of terrifying stress. The light of his eyes dwindled behind the guard of a damaged cranial system—escape routes, alternative timelines—ways for them both to survive—Intelligence was a bane in these moments—he could just as quickly crush an infeasible idea as he could create another for a fresh attempt. Red flashing light in his peripheral intensified—pain penetrated deeper—the flimsy structure of his body was folding in—he was crumpling—a mortal flesh capsule could not hold against the Creature. A _craaa-ck_ ; He couldn't distinguish the sharp elastic-coil jolt from the thousand other pains—he remembered staring at his cousin, the dark determination in her eyes ...Was that the last thing he would ever see?

Barely-functioning mental faculties shattered to dust—a cavern of old bones and memories that left him hollow—he hadn't found the solution they both required, hadn't conjured it in time—all the plans in the world had failed and he was the cause. His punishment: death. The thought made his disjointed stomach excavate—as if an abyss opened within the pits of him to try and suction up the negative emotions screeching through his disseminated brain matter. He thought nothing of the Creature—nothing of being ripped to shreds—but of all the things that _he'd_ failed to accomplish...

X

X

X

AN UNOPENED LETTER, FOUND IN THE WIZARDING ARCHIVES:

 _My son,_

 _I was wrong. I see that now. I did not think life would ever award me this chance. It is an odd turn, our history has taken. I did not think I would live to see you again, to deserve a chance at reconciliation._

 _It has been four months and thirteen days since you last spoke to me; I press my finger to your temple and I can feel the pulse of your racing thoughts. I know you are in there; I know you are thinking, planning, processing—your engine of a mind you has always been your most valuable resource. Your mind is your greatest power. You are so precious to me, Albus. You are so rare. There have been so few like you in the entire course of wizarding history. I don't know how I became fortunate enough to have you for a son._

 _I am not the man that I should have been, and there will never be an apology big enough to cover everything, but at least you can feel safe that I am here right now, Albus. And I will do my best to protect you and this world for as long as I live._

 _Watching you die was the most horrible experience of my life. I've seen too many die, and you..._

 _I couldn't..._

 _I used the Stone to cement your soul to your body. I was lucky that I did not have to cross into the Other realm to retrieve your soul, but what I have committed is still an egregious crime; To tamper with the boundaries of life and death in any sense is punishable. If anyone knew what I had done, I would be imprisoned. This is a secret I will take to my grave._

 _Time is slipping by very fast. I do not think there will be enough. I do not think Cygnus can be killed any longer—he is too large of a threat to be challenged again in this lifetime. He will be the burden of future generations. The shields I have created will preserve the sanctity of England for as long they hold. I will refresh them every season so that our world can continue without interference. Eventually they will fall and the course of history will resume, but you and I are beyond that now._

 _I see now, that I pushed you too hard. I wanted you to be something you were not. Rose had told me—you were deviating; you didn't want this. She saw it before me. I did not listen to my niece. You see, son, in my folly, I thought I was clever enough to predict every move you could possibly make. I had presumed that your path would be like Tom Riddle's—that you would chase power. That you would choose **magic** above all else. It was what I had hoped and planned for. I was even prepared to let you kill me for it._

 _And then you surrendered me the Stone._

 _In all my calculations, it was **not** something I had planned for. I had not imagined you giving me the Stone, not even in my wildest dreams._

 _I see, now, that I disappointed you. And in turn, **you wanted to disappoint me**. I did not listen to you, not when it was truly important, and in my single-minded determination, I hurt you. You had worked so hard to become the wizard you were, you had come **so far**. Everything you had trained for—you were prepared to let it go to waste._

 _What a mess we've made._

 _I don't know what comes next. We are past the chasm of predictability. All I know is that this is no longer your burden. It would be cruelty to ask for any more. You are my boy, my son alone, nothing more and nothing less, and I hope that you'll still allow me to be your father_ _when you wake up._

 _Also, I am sorry for what happened with Rose._ _I didn't think she'd go that far to save you._

 ** _Love,_**

 _Harry_

X

X

X

The contagion heat of the muggy day'd reduced Hugo to a black, muggle SUPERMAN graphic tee and grey cargo shorts. It was hardly presentable attire for his weekly lunch at the _Amain Ducasse au Plaza Athenee_ with the new Minister of Magic, but Hugo was pressed for time this afternoon and did not plan to remain long.

The Minister had once been her sister's boss—the Head of Magical Law Enforcement—and evidently, felt rather guilty about the tragic turn events had taken after the Battle of the Highlands, because he was insistent on treating his previous ward's younger brother to the most expensive picks of food. Hugo, being Hugo, was not one to refuse an opportunity to stuff his face.

With a thoughtless bounce to his step, the young boy shuffled rapidly through the decorated dining hall, lacking a certain social unease even while the restaurant was lined with snobbishly rich patrons who sent judgmental stares his way. Clutching his raggedy bookbag to his chest, he squeezed between two silvery trolleys lined with freshly-baked pastries. His mouth was already watering from the warm, buttery smells, and his stomach gave a loud rumble.

The scar-faced Minister sat at their usual table—by the window— casually sipping red wine, observing at Hugo while waiters scurried about tending to the man's every unspoken whim. "Which one?" he said, noticing the young boy's desiring stare.

"Can I have more than one?"

The Minister's face was taken with the shadow of a smirk. With the raise of a long-fingered, ring-adorned hand, he arrogantly gestured the elves to lord over the entire trolley, allowing Hugo's grubby hands to select their pick of the lot.

"So, how are you doing?" the Minister asked, leaning in.

From underneath a mop of frizzy brown curls, the young boy's eyes peered up.

"Okay." Hugo's voice came meek and muffled between bites at a chocolate croissant.

"That blond fellow has taken legal ward of you, hasn't he? Malfoy's boy."

A dutiful nod followed this probing question. Since his sister's death, Hugo'd been staying at Malfoy Manor with Scorp, Scorp's parents, Scorp's assemblage of quirky elves, and Scorp's latest girlfriend. It was a full, animated house, all things considered, and Hugo was rarely ever left alone to mingle with his sad thoughts, which he liked. Hugo still visited Lorcan from time to time, for despite the horrid obsession with kneazles, Lorcan was his sister's old friend and overall a good lad.

In fact, the only person more upset than Hugo about what happened to his sister was Lorcan. He was devastated Rose was gone, absolutely fucking _traumatized_. All that illegal nerd stuff the pair had been working on...Lorcan said—sobbed—his research was ruined; the Ressurectionist had been _essential_ to solving the mysteries of Death. The last time Hugo visited Lorcan's penis-shaped abode, the Unspeakable had been sitting in a pile of torn, rune-covered book pages flashing an ominous green light some at some replica doll of Rose. He'd built a…well, Hugo could only describe it as a creepy, ginger, voodoo shrine. Hugo wagered the Unspeakable was trying to resurrect Rose, but he really had no clue.

Rose always did pick the strangest blokes. As far as Hugo was concerned, the only normal one was Scorp.

 _You left me stuck in a twelve-year old's body, Rosie. Did you forget?_ Hugo knew his sister and Lorcan had been working on a solution to his pointed lack of growth before her untimely death, but the poor Unspeakable'd been so _out of it_ , Hugo didn't have the heart to ask him for help without Rose. Lorcan also reckoned Hugo's brain was probably a bit stunted as well because of his body (Hugo thought Lorcan was just trying to call him childish and immature—tosser!). Lorcan had said fixing Hugo's body was on his long list of things to do; that he'd get to it once he figured out how to cross this entity called _the Veil_...Hugo just wanted to hit puberty, really.

"You know," the Minister's voice punctured through his thoughts. "Your sister's memorial is tomorrow."

Mouth chock-full of strawberry goo, Hugo felt his tiny shoulders deflate.

"Mhm," was all he said.

"You'll be coming, right Hugo? Will you say a few kind words about your sister? "

Hugo stared down at his lap for a pained minute. He shook his head with such vehement force, it made his entire mop of curls shake. Problem was he already knew how this would play out: The Minister would give this sappy speech about Rosie being heroic and courageous and such a pleasure to work with and blah blah blah before segue-waying into some tangent about the latest ministry regulations. It would be formal and perfunctory and insincere—a _performance_. They would make Hugo wear some uppity tux and parade him around like a piece of meat for the masses. They would expect Hugo to cry; but Hugo would _not_ cry. He would not give the adults that satisfaction.

Also, Hugo didn't _really_ think his sister was dead.

He didn't care what the newspapers printed, or what the Minister or even what the newly-returned Uncle Harry told him. They said Rose died trying to vanquish the Dark Lord; But adults were always lying, weren't they? They hadn't even let Hugo see the body when he asked— _demanded_. Why so much secrecy? Suspicious, very suspicious. To quote something he'd heard his scariest cousin once say... _Further investigation was necessary._

"Sir," Hugo pronounced slowly, swallowing a custard-filled bite of a French horn, taking care to address the Head—err— _Minister_ —in the same way his sister would be done so. "Can I go see Uncle Harry now?"

The two menacing brows upon the Minister's face raised.

"Are you eager to leave my company so soon, Hugo?" he said, through a thin, politely concealed smile.

"Sorry." Flustered, Hugo shuffled about in his chair. "Uncle Harry told me to come see him yesterday. I know he's really busy these days—so I want to catch him before he leaves."

The Minister raised his chin with a reserved arrogance, peering at Hugo's smallness.

"I take it things are well between you and your uncle?"

A half-hearted shrug followed this intrusive question. It wasn't a lie. Hugo didn't really know. He didn't really trust his uncle any more than he trusted other adults (minus Scorp and Lorcan, who only counted as half-adults). It struck Hugo odd, that Uncle Harry was now back, and so was Albus—well, sorta—when both had been presumed dead _for so long._

It was like his sister and his cousin had switched places.

Two years ago, Albus had 'died' and Rose was the famous one; Now Rose was 'dead' and Albus was the famous one. The Ministry said Albus had vanquished the Dark Lord and near overnight his cousin had skyrocketed to a staggering amount of fame. He was a household name. Article after article was printed about him; Reporters hounded the premises outside the hospital like hungry vultures, badgering staff, vying to get photos. Ministry officials, including the Minister himself, were also lined to get to speak with him the second he surfaced consciousness. Teenage girls were sending in love letters by the parcel-load.

Albus had no clue he was such a hot commodity—he couldn't speak a word. Couldn't bat an eyelid.

Scorpius, who had transferred to serve as a healer at St. Mungo's now, said Albus' body, though it seemed frailly held together, showed signs of complete _dismemberment_ at the abdominal region. All organ systems had shut down and many were altogether missing. He was a corpse, but brain waves persisted nevertheless.

Scorp said it was a miracle that he was somehow alive.

 _Your family...the whole lot of you are fucking insane, you know that?_

There was no refuting this point. Miraculously surviving against the odds was, by now, a family tradition. A fan and reader of muggle stories, Hugo felt his cousin resembled Frankenstein's monster—a pile of bones and damaged parts strung together by a dangerous force.

This could only mean that Uncle Harry was _Dr. Frankenstein._

"Uncle Harry's really busy these days," Hugo said in response to the Minister's question. "I don't like to bother him too much."

"Ah yes..." The Minister nodded. "Your Uncle has taken on a great deal of…responsibility since he's returned. He is helping the ICW handle this new…problem."

A noncommittal shrug.

There had been riots in China earlier that week. Killings. Talk of a new dark lord (Hugo was just glad it was happening somewhere far away. The last thing England needed was _another_ dark lord). Hugo knew his uncle was gearing up to head to the ICW headquarters to sort it out. Scorp said it was because Uncle Harry had played a hand in killing _their_ dark lord, so now he was like—some dark lord consultant for the rest of the world.

Uncle Harry could never really stop being Harry Potter, could he? Wherever there was a dark lord, he had to get involved.

"I should go," Hugo chirped, bouncing to his feet. "Thank you for lunch, Mr...Minister sir."

"Have a good day, Hugo." The Minister gave a genial smile, waving at him. "Take care. Tell your uncle I wish him the best of luck!"

The elves brought out Hugo's usual take-home package of pastries and the small boy tucked it into his bag, saving it as a treat for later. Waving back at the Minister, he carelessly trailed out the café once more oblivious to the snobbishly patronizing stares, walking and occasionally skipping through the bustling streets of Diagon Alley, which had been restored after the death of Graham Paisley. There was a massacre that had happened in Diagon Alley a few years ago, a consequence of his sister's early reputation, but all the savage remnants of it had been erased now; the world was tilting in a pleasant direction again. Hugo often took to these streets now when he was shopping and scouring materials for Lorcan's latest potion, or even simply when he was bored and wanted to get ice cream. As a result, he was on good terms with many of the regulars. The teenage girl who worked at Madam Puddifoot's—three years Hugo's senior—blew Hugo a kiss from the window and the young boy gave an embarrassed flush before awkwardly waving back.

England was so...peaceful now. It was possible to tread the streets at night without being robbed or attacked. Shopkeepers no longer closed-up from fear whenever a crow landed on their perch. Kids could play outside without their parents worrying about bomb threats; Hugo saw a dozen or so teenagers playing quidditch on a nearby open field. Scorp said the world was normalizing again now that Graham Paisley was finally dead.

How very strange _normal_ felt without his sister.

A distant hurt panged at Hugo's chest.

Picking up his pace, he slipped past the bricked exit of Diagon Alley, trailing muggle streets until he at last found the inconspicuous red elevator that would shoot him into the Ministry. Hugo needed to reach a floor for which the highest security clearance was required—Uncle Harry was, perhaps, a more important public figure than the Minister himself.

Even so, his uncle had ensured that Hugo would be able to come find him whenever he desired, although Uncle Harry very rarely happened to be in his brand-new office in general. The peace-keeping affairs of the world kept him rather busy.

Hugo carelessly trailed along the halls of the high-security floor and many of the officials, upon recognizing him, ruffled his curls or patted at his shoulder as they passed by. Ministry people were inordinately nice and considerate of Hugo because of what had happened with the Ressurectionist. Just the previous week, old work acquaintances of his sister—Aurors named Cynthia and Kovy—had brought Hugo a large cake for his birthday (he was turning 12 again but _still_ ). If it took a village to raise a child, then Hugo was very much that child.

Curving a corner, he landed upon Uncle Harry's office.

Hugo meekly knocked at the door and waited.

His uncle, when he had first returned, had been very thin and frail, but now the muscle mass was coming back. He was looking more like the figure Hugo remembered from early family photos. Even so, the boy often felt compelled to bring him food.

"Hullo," Hugo greeted, a bit timidly, when the door opened. "Wasn't sure if you liked custard." He reached into his bag, retrieving a squashed pastry, and held it out for the man.

Uncle Harry's eyes crinkled appreciatively behind his round glasses.

"That's very kind of you, Hugo. But I already ate. Come in." The man moved to the side, letting Hugo stride in and make himself comfortable wherever he liked.

"Will you be at the Burrow later today, Hugo?"

Hugo furiously shook his curls as he sunk into his uncle's big armchair.

Harry's brows pursed in concern. "Why not?"

"Busy..." Hugo mumbled. In truth he just did not want to see his family. They'd relocated to England when the blockade ended following the Dark Lord's death; they'd been sending him owls _daily_ , pleading to see him, begging to get him to come over to functions; Today was Easter and there was a small party at the Burrow but he'd been ignoring it all. Uncle Harry had told Hugo to soften his heart and try to make amends but he _couldn't_. It didn't matter if things were better now. It didn't erase how abandoned he and his sister had felt all those years ago. And they'd been alone for _so long_. And everything'd been _so hard_. Hugo still recalled how much his sister had cried. So he couldn't forgive _those people_. He _wouldn't_.

"What are you busy with today, Hugo?" Uncle Harry questioned further, brows still etched in that worrisome way.

"The hospital..." Hugo mumbled, staring at his lap so he wouldn't have to see his uncle's eyes get all twinkly with tears. "I decorated an egg for Al. It's blue with little sparrows."

"That's very sweet, Hugo." A hand clutched affectionately at the side of his head. "I'm sure he'll appreciate it when he wakes up."

Hugo gave an uneven nod, though he knew the nature of his scariest cousin to be an unappreciative sort.

"When do you think..." Hugo let the question trail off. It had been four months.

Uncle Harry leant down, with steady hands at his shoulders. "I don't know," he admitted with a sigh. "Body regeneration is a grueling process."

"Did you resurrect him like Rosie resurrected me?" Hugo asked in a small, fearful voice.

Uncle Harry looked toward the door for a second, as if wary of sudden intrusion. Hugo knew he was the only one Uncle Harry had told about the nature of Albus' survival. He was the only one who knew of the _Stone._

"Not your sister's method. Very different," came a whisper. "We can't talk about it here though."

"Because it's illegal?" Hugo squeaked, his stomach jumbled with unruly emotions.

Uncle Harry gave a pained smile, which was answer enough.

Pacing over to the door and peering outside, the man quickly ensured that they were not being listened in on. He walked back to Hugo and bent down to face him again.

"I want to talk to you properly when I get back from the ICW, Hugo, I want to talk about some..." he lowered his voice again. "Private things. Related to your Resurrection. "

Hugo gave a soft nod. "What sort of things?"

Uncle Harry's concerned eyes whirled over him, taking in his small form.

"What Rose did to bring you back years ago was very dangerous and for some reason, it has permanently stunted your growth. I have been thinking...I fixed Albus' body with a…let's call it a very potent strategy to magic. Maybe, just maybe... I can use it to fix yours too."

X

Uncle Harry was a fixer. Much like his sister, Uncle Harry had a _saving people thing._

This became evident to Hugo as the green powdery flames of floo transport licked over his vision. As the green flames disappated, he was greeted with the sharp smell of antiseptic and healing brews and the sound of well-paced footsteps against slick marbled flooring. Wizards and witches clad in neat, official white robes were busy making rounds, going room to room, though those that recognized Hugo waved at him. Naturally, Hugo waved back.

St. Mungo's.

Scorpius was already inside Albus' room, sitting at his bedside.

"He blinked at me today," the blond informed Hugo with a wide grin.

"Bollocks," said Hugo, collapsing onto his regular chair and swiping through the stack of comic books that percolated by the leg. He siphoned out the latest edition of the Incredible Hulk and began to flip the wrinkled pages.

"It's not bollocks," Scorp argued.

Hugo stared up with an unconvinced look. "You said last week he _winked_. How come he never does anything exciting when _I'm_ around?"

"Dunno," murmured Scorp. "But he's been moving a bit more than usual lately."

Hugo stared at Albus' face. The cheeks were sunk in completely and any residual muscle and fat was gone, making the intense outline of his skull detectable under the pale and bruised skin. What hurt Hugo the most was the gap though: The space between his cousin's twig thighs was so wide an array of stars could reside there. So wide his knees didn't even knock when you pressed him together. For all the nutrients consistently pumped into his bloodstream; Albus looked like the poster boy for anorexia. Not much better than Hugo had after his own Resurrection.

In fact, he looked much _worse_ than Hugo had. He was so morbidly thin, it was painful to look at him. Tubes and multiple drips hooked to his bloodstream, pushing sustenance into his body, but his digestive tract had been— _literally_ —torn from his body and there was only so much that magic could restore so fast. His urinary system malfunctioned too—he seemed to bleed whenever his body urinated, which they said was an early sign of dying.

Scorp squeezed the boy's skeletal hand slightly—they were allowed to touch him now, though in delicate ways because the skin was tissue thin—and there was a flinch on the sallow face, a micro expression of pain.

"Holy fuck," Scorpius wheezed out. He shot a wide incredulous look at Hugo. "You saw it too, right?"

Hugo, whose heart had dropped to his stomach, nodded.

X

It would take another month and fifteen days for Albus to fully regain consciousness.

The eyes, which had been glassy and opaque, slowly began to fill with their green color, as they focused in on the three faces staring back at him.

Uncle Harry spoke first, through tears, through a kindly crinkled smile. "Hello son."

With hollow eyes, the frail boy did very little than to stare back at his father. There was a dead quality to his stare, as if he was looking through the man at the cream-colored wall.

His father was non-existent.

The gaze then flit to Scorpius, who was clasping at his hand, with relieved tears in eyes. Albus stared brokenly down at the firm grip, with the distressed confusion of an infant witnessing an action for the first time; it was clear, that he didn't know what to make of another bloke holding his hand.

It unnerved him; His hand yanked away from Scorp's at once.

Bloodshot eyes then settled upon Hugo.

They stared for a good long minute, raking over every detail of younger boy's appearance, processing and scrutinizing in that painfully familiar Albus-like way.

The eyes widened, as if the revelation had just struck him, as though memories of all that had happened had just returned. Pain poured into the gaunt expression and the still-colorless lips twisted with despair.

Frayed vocal cords croaked out one soft word.

"Sorry."

And Hugo's heart sank.

X

Weeks passed. Hugo and Scorpius visited the boy daily, in every spare moment they had. They had an unspoken agreement to do so, although the reasoning behind it wasn't so apparent. Then again, maybe it was _too_ obvious. Hugo had more free time than Scorpius, who was a healer with a strenuous schedule and often travelling for work. Hugo, therefore, spent most of his nights near Albus' cot; the boy still could not sit up without support, or talk much at all, except for a few grunts.

They played chess.

Albus, because his arms and hands were clunky with movement, would try to move the pieces with wandless magic. His face would strain with exertion; veins bulged at his temples from frustration, wet anger often stung at eyes; the task of moving a tiny chock of wood was _so_ hard. Albus Potter, one of the greatest minds of his generation, who killed the Dark Lord, now could not even move a single fucking chess piece. Coordination was difficult too; Often pieces tumbled off the board to the floor. Albus would murmur a quick, broken _sorry_ to which Hugo would say _S'okay_ before awkwardly ducking his head to scour for the pieces.

Hugo won every single game.

Eventually word got around that Albus was finally conscious and the whole family wanted to visit. When this information was conveyed to Albus, the heart monitor went off with a loud shriek. A Mediwitch was rushed to the room, who injected him with a calming serum used on patients under severe duress.

"Scorp," came the croak.

"What is it, Potter?"

"Need...need..."

"Go on."

"Your father."

Scorp's dad was a high-powered attorney.

He arrived at the hospital the next day to help Albus drum up forty-one restraining orders, one for every other member of the extensive Potter-Weasley clan. His fingers lacked the strength to grip a quill, so he had Hugo hold his hand and drag his fingers along each document in his signature.

Much like Hugo, Albus did not want to see _those_ _people_. Not Ginny, not James, not Lily, not Uncle Charlie, not-

No one.

And Hugo knew, it was for much the same reason.

X

"Can you—"

The older boy broke off, clutching at his abdomen. It meant he needed to take a piss.

Hugo, who had been busy reading a comic, adeptly set it down and dashed to get the wheelchair and help orient him onto it. One frail leg dropped onto the apparatus, then the other. Albus shuddered in pain as his bony arse slipped onto the uncushioned seat; His head ducked, whether from the pain or humiliation of the action, Hugo was not certain. Then, Hugo moved him into the direction of the adjacent bathroom.

Albus was not quite adept enough to orient himself on the toilet.

Hugo's help was required in that endeavor as well.

"Sorry," came the pained grunt once more, as the younger boy undid his zipper, handled his lowers. Albus often said sorry to Hugo, but _only_ to him. He was apologizing, again and again, for the same thing.

"It's okay," Hugo assured, even though it was really not. Rose being dead would never really be okay. How could it?

Liquid drained into the bowl; His cousin stared at the floor in a frail, dejected way; this was, very clearly, fucking embarrassing for him, made even worse given the massive size of his ego. Hugo tried to subvert all the potential awkwardness of the moment by keeping his stare upwards, but he was a twelve-year-old boy, and tact did not come to him as easily he would've liked.

Afterwards.

"Hugo..."

Door on the knob, Hugo froze.

"Wish it'd been me too," came the broken wheeze.

Hugo's eyes filled with tears.

X

Bath time was also an awkward endeavor.

Albus had an aversion to physical contact— _male_ physical contact. He could not tolerate the coarse, clinical hands of male nurses. Female nurses were reassigned, but stranger anxiety remained a problem. Given the fragility of his skin, Albus distrusted all unfamiliar touches.

Uncle Harry, whenever he came to visit, would try to touch Albus in fatherly affection, to grasp his hand or even to palm his cheek, but it was clear to Hugo that Albus _despised_ physical contact with the man. He flinched at the slightest gesture. Albus always had Hugo stay in the room when his father came; he often wanted Hugo around. Hugo noted that whenever Uncle Harry spoke, Albus' eyes wandered elsewhere, dull, detached, unresponsive; He may as well have been dead. He never once engaged his father in conversation, never once uttered a single word.

Albus could _occasionally_ handle Scorp touching him, but there was clearly awkwardness associated with another full-grown bloke holding his hand and petting his leg, even in a completely platonic way. Albus rather preferred, for most things that required physical contact, that it was Hugo. Maybe it was because Hugo—still a prepubescent—had the softest hands. He was certainly the least masculine of these three familiar people currently in Albus' life, and there was a shame associated with frailty and masculinity; More than his body, His cousin's ego had taken the hardest hit.

Or maybe it was because in Hugo he saw himself.

They were both boys who hadn't asked to be saved. And Hugo well remembered his own days in the hospital. He understood the irrational fears that stemmed from pain better than anyone. He understood _helplessness_.

The boy was _skeletal_. He was an actual, living corpse. The grooves of his neckbone were painfully visible as Hugo carefully trailed a wet sponge across them. Albus sat in the tub, sullen head ducked, wet hair splayed over his forehead and eyes, shivering against even the gentlest touches by Hugo. This was a ritual that shamed Albus greatly.

The spine across his back was also visible, the sharp bones jutting out grotesquely—his cousin would not eat. Or rather, he wouldn't eat _enough_. The healers surmised that solid food hurt going down his throat, that it rested like a lurching mound in his stomach; His digestive system wasn't fully functional yet. But Hugo thought it was a silent act of rebellion. He predicted that Albus was trying to starve himself—he was trying to die, despite all the efforts made by his father to save him. He was suicidal, and he was trying to _punish_ Uncle Harry. For what, the younger boy didn't know.

"Can you lift your arms please?" Hugo murmured.

The bony appendages rose, slight and quivering, and Hugo carefully swiped a sponge over his pits.

"Hey Albus..."

The ducked head did not move.

"Please," Hugo tried again. "I can't let it go, please."

The boy gave a shudder, leaning forward and clutching at his bony legs, as lukewarm water washed over his back—his body couldn't handle extremes in temperature, but even the slightest pressure could evoke intense pain.

"Is there a chance—"

"She's dead, Hugo," cut the deep, hoarse response. "And if she's not, there is no way to retrieve her. I've done all the calculations...I won't give you false hope."

Pain panged in Hugo's chest.

He didn't even know how his cousin could surmise these calculations, but being a proper genius had to count for something.

Still.

"But what if the calculations are wrong," Hugo whispered.

The thin neck twisted and Albus gave him a pained parody of a smile.

"They've never once been wrong."

X

The more verbal Albus slowly became, the more things he would ask Hugo to bring. Books, mostly. Spellbooks, although these frustrated Albus because he did not have the strength to perform magic. It was accessory knowledge he could no longer apply. He often tossed them aside.

Then he asked for history books, philosophy books, Big Important Books like the Torah and the Koran, books from which people often derived meaning. All were tossed aside eventually, letting Hugo know that Albus had failed to find any higher meaning. For the first time in the boy's life, there were no mysteries to solve, no Dark Lord to thwart, nothing to occupy the maddeningly racing machine of a mind trapped inside the impaired body; A brain in a brittle box. Nothing gave Albus the purpose he starved for. And perhaps nothing ever could.

It was then, that Albus began asking for dirty magazines. Masturbation material, even though Healers had stated that body system was currently _not_ working. But the request made sense to Hugo. His cousin's conventional coping methods had failed—So now he wanted a distraction. Even the most brilliant of minds were weak to the burden of need, and one of the most paramount needs came in the form of _release_.

The next morning, these magazines were also found tossed aside in frustration.

That body part was clearly _not_ working.

Then, at last, came the request for cigarettes—though Hugo was not allowed to bring such items into a hospital, he did so anyway. Albus claimed they helped with pain and Hugo, in his naivety, wanted to be so very helpful.

And then one day, Scorpius caught them.

He swiped the device out of Albus' hand, with an anger very unlike Scorp's lighthearted nature.

"Are you fucking stupid now, Potter?" he hissed in a way that made Hugo wince. "Seriously—have you lost brain cells?"

The gaunt boy glowered coldly, with red rimmed eyes, in turn.

"Your body can barely process food right now—you think it can handle a fucking _cigarette_?" Scorp seethed, then took the whole packet and chucked it violently in the bin. "You think she _died_ to save your ungrateful arse just so you could—"

"Leave," Albus snapped, eyes blazing with anger at once. "Don't come back."

Scorp's eyes flashed with hurt. The jaw clenched in defiance.

"If she was here—"

"Get. _Out_ ," came a vehement growl.

Scorpius turned the heel and strode past a rattled, near-tears Hugo, cursing to himself. He paused at the door and gave a bitter laugh.

"And this is the savior of the wizarding world. What a pity."

The door slammed.

Hugo stared back at Albus, who had slumped back against his pillow and lifted the sheets to cover his entire head.

X

Hugo had come to the assessment, that, while he had lost a sister, he had somehow gained two brothers. And the two brothers didn't always know how to get along.

An odd tension existed between Scorp and Albus. An unspoken resentment. Perhaps even a jealousy. And now that Albus was becoming more vocal, it was beginning to surface.

One day Albus made Hugo aware of a request. He'd wanted to visit the old Weasley home, the place he'd lived with Rose after his mother kicked him out, the space they had used to concoct illegal potions and schemes. Though Hugo did not really want to go, all three of them went; Scorpius had wanted to tag along too.

"No," Albus had objected. "It's the family home—Hugo and I are family. We're going alone. You're intruding."

Scorp had glared.

"Get your head out of your arse, Potter," he'd scoffed. "I'm more family to Hugo than you've ever been." He nodded imploring, with kind eyes, at Hugo. "Isn't that right, mate?"

Hugo had shuffled uncomfortably. He had never considered family came with _levels_. He's never thought that deeply about it. In truth he did not want to be in this conversation at all.

But Albus was gripping the back of his neck rather tightly, possessively, and Hugo could not escape the room.

The hand then shifted to pet at Hugo's curls, albeit with some aggression.

Albus tilted his head at Scorp, glaring coldly.

"She was _my_ sibling," he'd hissed, his voice lethal. "By that understanding, Hugo is also _mine_."

"Is that right?" Scorp had challenged. "As I recall, you never gave a fuck about Hugo before."

Albus did an odd thing in retaliation. He yanked Hugo to him, holding him protectively to his chest, and then he pressed an oddly intimate kiss to the young boy's temple.

"Still mine," Albus stated, finally relinquishing Hugo, before turning coldly to Scorp again. "I wasn't around enough to show it before."

"Just like your dad, eh?" Scorp spat, seething with bitterness now. "Neglect runs in the family, does it?"

For an uncharacteristic second, Albus' jaw fell. He did not know how to fathom a response. The face rearranged itself but didn't achieve its earlier ferocity.

He returned a pained, tired stare.

In truth, Hugo felt both boys had abandoned him at one point or another. Nearly _everyone_ Hugo had ever known had abandoned him at some point. He knew, very honestly, that Rose was his only, _true_ , family. That was why he still believed she could not be dead, no matter what anyone said. But why both boys wanted to be his brother so badly _now_ did not make sense. Hugo also did not understand why there was so _resentment_ over it. He could have two brothers, couldn't he?

It felt strange to be in the old home, surreal, heartbreaking.

All of Rose's things seemed trapped in the unreal space, in the same places she had left them. Hugo really didn't want to be there; It made his chest ache; It made him want to cry; He wanted to hear his sister's voice so _badly_.

Hugo watched Scorpius trail along her books, comb through the pages, his fingertips tracing and lingering where hers had been. He watched as Albus stared hollowly at the clothes hanging in her closet like old ghosts; he stared only, as if too afraid to touch and mess up the arrangement. He watched as Scorpius plopped down atop her old bed, and gave a deep, wistful sigh. He watched at Albus removed a picture of Rose from one of the old frames, stared at it longingly for a long, long minute, before tucking it away in his pocket; as if Hugo wouldn't notice.

And it was then Hugo understood why there was resentment.

X

His son had vacated the hospital premises.

He had somehow escaped.

Harry was informed in the middle of an important ICW conference. As aged wizards bickered left and right about what to do about the Chinese Dark Lord, the father quickly grabbed his coat, slipped out, and sought the nearest Portkey to take him to England.

The grey sky restlessly grumbled as he paced to the hospital. Thick blackened clouds were dragged down by the heavy rain held in its delicate frame. Clouds which struggled to withstand the burden of the weight which the rain held, soon gave in.

The urgent search did not last long. It ended when Harry climbed onto the hospital's rooftop to find the boy, on wheelchair, sitting at the very edge under the unnatural darkness of the afternoon.

Rain poured over them with a roar.

"Turn around and walk away," said the monotonous voice.

These were first words Albus had spoken to his father in seven months.

The echo of it was disrupted by the loud gregarious boom of thunder. The cold rain pierced Harry's pale skin as he observed at the treacherous perch of the wheelchair in caution. His heart was rattling, but he released a slow controlled breath.

"Back away, Albus. Please."

No response. The air felt so brittle it could snap.

"I didn't use the Stone to save you just so you could—"

"I don't _care_ ," came the harsh snap.

At long last, Albus turned to look at him, truly _look_ at him.

The eyes were _burning_ with rage.

"Leave. Me. _Alone_ ," his son snarled.

But Harry didn't. Couldn't. He took in the wheelchair-bound body, the frail limbs, the withered chest, the sunken face...the deteriorating frame...

"We'll fix it, Albus. I promise," he tried.

The boy turned away; Platitudes weren't going to cut it right now. The shoulders shook against the force of rain and the boy's own anger before stiffening once more. He spoke again, with a hardness, a ruthless, cutting objectivity:

"You're a lousy father. You used me. I hate you. I wish you'd been dead. I wish Riddle had killed you. I wish the creature had killed you. I wish I'd never been born."

All these statements were driven with blunt force, without any emotion or inflection, as if they were facts he'd been reciting, drumming in his head for months and months now. The mantra that had brought him to the edge of the rooftop. And Harry knew, it was the culmination of a lifetime of packaged bitterness. These were the words his son had been thinking every time the father attempted interaction.

Silent tears streamed with rainwater down the father's face.

"Don't take your life as some form of vengeance," Harry pleaded, quietly. "It's worth more than that."

"Is it?" His son jerked his head around with a growl, his cheeks hollow from starvation, his jaw tight with hatred. "You were all too ready to martyr me, weren't you? If I die doing what you want me to, then that's acceptable, isn't it? I can't even die on my own terms."

"I _never_ wanted you to die, Albus."

"Liar," came a sharp dismissive snap, followed shortly thereafter with a crack of thunder that echoed across the rooftop.

Rain continued to trickle in a consistent downpour, drenching them both. Albus flinched against the pressure. When Harry moved to cover him in his own coat, a firm, halting finger rose, indicating that he did _not_ wish to be touched.

"I worshiped you," came the quiet, ragged pant.

Thunder sounded again with a _clang_ , and his son gave another pained wince. Sharp colors, noises, touches, the sensory world was too much. Harry stared in a helpless, miserable silence, rainwater washing over his hair and down his own face.

"I'd have done anything you wanted," the boy gritted out every word with as much ferocity as his rattling, wheezing body could muster. "And you _knew_ that. And you _used_ me. You stole _my life_. You took _everything_. You even took _her_..."

Harry's face creased with remembrance.

"I warned her not to interfere...that there were consequences ...There was no way to predict what the Creature would do. "

These words defeated his son, crushed something inside him. The body slouched against the wheelchair, deflated; the bony arms rattled against the cold, the meek shoulders trembled.

"I don't want to be here anymore," Albus shuddered against the sharp pinpricks of rain, head ducked, miserably squeezing his eyes. "I don't have magic. I hate _everything_."

"I'll teach you magic again," Harry tried. Assurances, condolences, any promise, anything at all. He was prepared to do and say anything at all…

"Magic...it's not something you've lost, Albus...We can train again. We can start over."

"I don't want to start over," came the quiet, aching voice.

Albus' fists were clenched so tight the knuckles were whitening from the intensity. The fingers released, then the quivering palms gripped rubber. The wheels began to turn...

"Albus—!"

Another clang of thunder as Harry moved reflexively, wrapped his arm around his son's nimble waist, lifting him off just as the wheelchair careened violently off the edge, tumbling through open air—a menacingly loud crash of metal against pavement. Harry stared over the edge in horror at the mess; that had nearly been Albus' head.

The action of so much physical contact must've sent his son into paralytic shock because for an entire minute he hung unmoving in his father's arms.

Then the violent anger returned.

"Let me _go_ ," came a snarl.

Bony fists shoved; Harry took the jab against the neck but was quick to dodge the one at his stomach; Albus, growing fatigued quickly from this small amount of exertion, simply tried to pull away now; Harry wouldn't let him.

He gripped him tightly around the waist and carried him inside. His grown son, who was meant to be a grown man, was skin and bones, and weighed as much as a young child.

X

Albus, forcibly dressed in an oversized long-sleeved white tee, stared hollowly at the bowl of streaming soup placed before him.

"Pick up the spoon," the father stated. It was not a demand, but it was also not a request. There was weight to it.

His son glowered at him with those beaten eyes. There was so much need and pain in them, so much _starvation_ , yet he refused. A stubborn monk, the boy remained, even when he no longer needed to be.

"No," came the low assertion. Harry had noticed that Albus habitually spoke with a cold, commanding force. It was the voice of a prospective Dark Lord, a man who might've ruled the country. But it was not the voice of the bruised, frail child sitting before him.

Harry groaned, pressing at the space between his eyes in frustration.

"Listen..." he sighed.

"I do _not_ exist to please _you_ ," came another bitter, _fuming_ , assertion. The lip was curled, the fists clenched and trembling in white-hot fury. "I am _not_ your _puppet_."

"For Merlin's sake, I'm just asking you to eat!" Harry snapped, throwing his hands in the hair.

They were sitting in the St. Mungo's cafeteria. Passing Mediwitches looked at them in alarmed.

"It's alright," Harry called at the ladies, a bit sheepish now. "We're just having a friendly chat."

To his relief, Albus had now gripped the spoon and begun to scoop bites.

"You're pathetic," his son grumbled under his breath, making no effort to hide his derision. "Obsessed with appearances. All too intent on pleasing others."

"Sure," Harry responded, voice clipped. "How's the soup?"

Albus shot a cold, irritated look.

"Adequate," he informed, stiffly. "How was the ICW conference?"

"Adequate," Harry sighed, lost in relief, leaning against his hand as he observed wistfully at his finally-eating son. At long _last_ , they'd broken past the hunger strike. "Dreadfully boring, if I'm honest. The others never stop bickering. Not a soul under a hundred years in those halls…"

"Well, governance is an old man's job." A taunt, the hint of a sneer eluded his son's face, as he brought the steaming bowl to his lips. "You must fit right in."

"I'm not _that_ old."

No response.

"I mean...Do I really look that old?"

"You make the portraits of Dumbledore look young," Albus stated with a point-blank bluntness.

Harry stared at his son, at the sheer ruthlessness of him. This, _this_ , was the boy who nearly became the Dark Lord.

The corner of the father's mouth twitched, trying to decide between pained humor and offense.

Albus sneered, this time openly, at the indecision. Then the boy's stomach rumbled, so he turned his wheelchair and went to go retrieve more food from the cafeteria.

"I knew Dumbledore in person!" Harry called after him. "He wasn't _that_ old. He had a kick to his step even at the end. Once he—"

"Stop talking, I never want to hear a Dumbledore story from you again," came a sharp snap.

His son was busy ringing up another a tray of food. He rolled back at the table and set it down. And began to eat.

"Looks delicious, Albus," the father noted, watching him hungrily devour a salad. "You'll be back to your handsome self no time."

His son scoffed in disdain at the blatant appeal to his vanity, though it was clear Albus cared about his appearance a fair amount, even if he had always taken it for granted. Harry watched him chew a bite thoughtfully, as if wondering how many it would more it would take before his face and body returned to their normal appearance.

Albus then stared up as if trying to gauge out the where to take the conversation now that he was finally speaking to his father.

"Tell me about this Chinese dark lord," he said stiffly, wiping his lips on a napkin. "What is the nature of his...rise?"

Harry shot a precautionary look around them, then lowered his voice

"The Creature," he informed.

"He's in the eastern hemisphere now? Does your shield not extend that far or are you simply inept at wielding the Stone?" his son quipped coldly.

"It is a..." Harry sighed, agitatedly drumming his fingers against the edge of the table as he threw another paranoid glance to ensure they were alone. "limitation of the Stone."

Albus snorted.

"Then you are using it incorrectly; the Stone has no limits."

"Maybe, maybe not. But right now, I don't have the capacity to cast a worldwide shield. Anyway—it doesn't matter..."

Albus stared upwards, incredulous brows raised.

"Saving the entire world no longer _matters_?" he jeered. " And here I thought that was _all_ that mattered, _Dad_."

A pang of hurt shot through Harry.

"Well, it's not," he insisted, his brow knit.

Albus gave an unconvinced, unmoved stare.

"I _wish_ he'd ripped you apart," he said, dryly, callously. "The Creature. It's what you deserve. I wish it'd been you he'd taken and killed, instead of..."

The conversation trickled off as Albus returned his eyes to his sandwich. He couldn't even say it.

Harry watched him dejectedly.

"Rosie was a good sister," he said it for him, voice quiet, and the shadow of pain crossed his son's face. "She'll be missed very much."

His son was now staring at a photo in his palm, with a lost, frail expression. It was a softness Harry had never witnessed on his features before. And it was not a brotherly softness. The photo was held at an angle so it could not be seen.

But before the building question could be asked, his son had tucked the photo away. He did not bother with an excuse, or a justification. This was a delicate matter on which he did not want input in any way, shape, or form.

Albus changed the subject with abrupt force.

"So how soon can you start training me again?" he demanded, folding his bony arms arrogantly across the table. "I'm tired of living like a muggle. I am the _greatest wizard of this age—_ I want my power restored."

"Once you're back at a normal weight," Harry said evenly, folding his arms to mirror his son.

Albus' brow twitched in annoyance. Patience was not a virtue the boy possessed.

"Three thousand calories a day," Harry said, lifting his chin. "Nutritious foods. Plenty of fruits and veg—"

A fist thumped on the table in outrage. "Absolutely _not_ ," Albus hissed. "I can't eat that much—"

"Those are my terms. No more starving. You fix your body and I'll fix your magic...and then we'll fix whatever's left."

The boy glowered at his father with the utmost disdain.

Then he petulantly swerved the wheelchair and went to fill his tray with heaping helpings of everything the small cafeteria held.


	41. Distract

_He's depressed, Hugo._

 _He nearly flung himself off the rooftop._

 _His condition won't improve until he wants it to._

 _We have to keep him busy._

"Albus, want to play chess?"

The older cousin did not reply. The older cousin looked bored with board games. The crown of dark hair was tilted away with an uncaring leisure, and he was staring out the rain-smattered window with dull, apathetic eyes. Rain pounded against the hospital rooftop with increasing ferocity; At the claps of thunder, Albus would give an involuntary flinch, and it was clear he hated that he lacked control over his bodily reactions; It was also clear that he hated rainstorms. The fluorescent lights of the small enclosed room scrutinized his morbid corpse-like thinness, making it even more ugly and prominent.

Hugo tried again.

"Albus..." he trailed off. "Could help me with a hex I've been trying to learn?"

Finally, green eyes glanced over with some modicum of interest.

"Which hex?" said the low, hoarse voice.

Hugo was swift to pull a spellbook from his bag, shuffle to a specific page, and splay it across his cousin's lap. The older boy stared at the words, before derisively tilting his chin up. "There's a better way to cast it," he said, voice clearing to convey cold arrogance. "This chapter was _clearly_ written by a novice—Come here."

With a sheepish smile, Hugo neared. A cool, bony hand grasped his wand-holding fist, firmly but not painfully, guiding it to an angle so that Hugo's grip on his wand was loose, and yet tight enough to keep it pointed.

"Now, the pronunciation must be exact," Albus instructed sternly.

After his cousin uttered the enchantment a few times to hone his ear, Hugo repeated it, and then watched awe as a shimmery orange light blazed out the end of his wand, carving a dent in the window pane.

"That's the first time I've done it," Hugo admitted.

The older boy merely nodded, quiet gaze sweeping over Hugo as if assessing motive.

"Why the sudden interest in learning offensive magic?" he said.

"You told me years ago..." Hugo tapered off, struck by sudden nerves. He balanced on the balls of his feet, trying to find his voice again. "You told me… that every wizard should know their essential hexes ...I thought now might finally be a good time to learn since you're around again."

Albus' mouth twitched in a barely-there smirk.

"All because of what I said years ago?" he said, tone growing saturated with amusement.

Hugo's cheeks felt hot. He tried to look anywhere but at the older boy's jagged sharp eyes, silently unmasking hidden intentions. "I always thought you were cool." Hugo decided to swallow his ego and just outright admit it. "Scary, but cool."

The attentive gaze swept from Hugo over to his stack of comic books.

"Like those characters you read about?"

"Sorta yeah."

Mouth coiling with intrigue, Albus leant in. "So which one am I, Hugo?" he said slyly.

"None of the heroes."

"Hmm?"

"You're Modok," he stammered with another flush. "He's a baddie. He's not really a person though. He's—like a giant mutated floating brain that kills people."

For a moment, the piercing eyes did not leave Hugo's face.

But he quickly found that his cousin was not angry or offended. To his shock, the face broke out into a crude grin, which, given the hollowness of his cheeks and terrible lighting, gave a slightly menacing appearance.

"I like it," he replied.

Sitting up now, the older boy straightened his spine, impatiently gesturing Hugo onto the chair placed at his bedside while he flipped through the spellbook with a newfound energetic purpose.

"So what hex shall I teach you next?"

X

X

X

" _Focus_ , son."

A sudden flux of chilly wind from spellfire made a shiver crawl through his brittle arms as the beam of light shoved him backwards. While he maintained the agility to land on his feet, his knobby knees ached against the pressure of his meager weight, and his thigh muscles—slight and bruised—stung with pain. He wanted to succumb to gravity, sink into the grass, and disappear from the world.

"Clear your head," his father's voice urged. "You've done this before. You've done this a thousand times."

"I..." A heavy, pain-filled, frustrated-filled groan deflated from his rattling lungs. His fist clutched at his chest, at his rapidly-pacing heart, as if to quell.

"Can't…breathe…"

The confession came with an involuntary collapse of his spindly knees; Within seconds, his forehead felt the pathetic press of dirt and he shuddered out his breaths. It was already over.

"You're distracted," came his father's voice.

"I _am_ focused." There was a quivering tightness to his voice. "I've _always_ been—"

"No you're not. You think I can't tell when you're distracted?"

"Sorry to be a disappointment," he panted against the grass, _seethed_ out, in bitter frustration. "But I had my body torn to _bits_ because of you."

"Albus…Please stand up."

This command triggered the return of violent, vengeful wrath. He wanted to _kill_ his father. He wanted to rise to his feet, make powerful strides over, clasp his father's throat and _strangle_ him. He'd watch the face turn blue, watch the limbs flail without aim as air painfully depleted from the body as it slowly limpened—He imagined his father's death so vividly. He wanted it _so badly._ But he couldn't—couldn't—

"Albus…I said stand up."

His eyes clasped tighter at this command. Fists clenched miserably, angrily, helplessly into grass.

"I _can't_ ," he groaned out in agonized, _excruciating_ pain.

X

X

X

The knife cut the steak into quarters, taking a moment to select the smallest one. The other pieces he slid away. Then he took the knife once more and carefully cut the quarter into four more pieces. Again he selected the smallest one, the other three away. Already the saliva was pooling in his mouth, but there was a break—a mental gap—between intent and action. He _intended_ to eat. Of course he did. The action took longer. He counted out the bites he'd need to take to make everything on his plate go away. It was already too many, far too many, but he picked up his fork, stabbed a piece of meat, and at last brought it to his mouth.

"Look at our boy eat, Hugo. He's turning into a strapping lad—"

A strong, masculine hand reached over to nip at his frail cheek.

Humiliation surged inside, twisted his nerves; he couldn't swallow. He spat it out on his plate. "No touching me," he hissed, swatting the hand away, the muscle in his jaw twitching in anger as he coldly surveyed the blond. "Go paw at your girl."

Malfoy, the arsehole, grinned insolently.

"My girl's not as delicate as you, Potter," he jibed, and then drew a piece of licorice from one of the open bags of candy spread across Albus' bed courtesy of Hugo, before collapsing against the long chaise lounge they'd scooted into the hospital room. "And anyway, she's working tonight. She'll be tired when she gets home which means I'm not getting laid. I need a distraction and you're the most effeminate thing—"

A fierce silencing charm was thrown at the blond who yelped as he rolled off the furniture in the nick of time.

"A joke, it's a motherfucking _joke_ —"

"How anyone willingly fucks you is still beyond me," Albus snapped back, his insides _burning_. He angrily ripped through the latest _Daily Prophet_ , in an effort to distract himself from his mounting fury, but the front was plastered with his face, with article after article written about him as _The Vanquisher of the Dark Lord_. They continued to use his teenage photograph, which infuriated him further and heightened his poignant, consistently growing urge to _kill._ Something, anything. Of course, he would never kill Malfoy—Too much history, too much sentiment. He would, in fact, kill anyone who tried to kill Malfoy, but at the present moment no one was trying to kill Malfoy either. A wasted opportunity, Albus thought, for his anger _needed_ a target. Normal life did not present the proper avenues for violence. He did not understand how others managed. Perhaps if he went to China, he could kill the Chinese Dark Lord and his slowly developing army. It had been far too long since he had committed a proper kill. And the way he had killed the British Dark Lord, in retrospect, hadn't been satisfying.

While fantasies for murder consumed Albus, his blond companion resumed his meaningless chatter:

"Lots of girls have willingly fucked me, Potter, believe it or not. Speaking of—"

Malfoy sat up and grinned audaciously.

"Have the love letters come pouring in yet?"

With his newfound fame and his teenage face plastered on every paper, Albus had attracted an offensive amount of attention from the nation's underage teenage girls.

"They're all in the bin," Hugo snickered, between the flip of a comic book page. "Last batch came in Thursday."

"I've discontinued my parcel service," Albus muttered with a noted lack of interest, spindly arms raised and angled, busy sawing the rest of his steak into pieces with a stupidly blunt plastic knife.

Scorpius, though, was now standing with a horrendously amused grin. He strode over to the bin to fish out one of the letters, and began to read it out-loud, in his most high-pitched voice:

" _Dear Albus Potter, heart, heart, heart, thank you soooo much for saving us from the evil Dark Lord. heart, heart, heart. p.s. you have the dreaaaaamiest eyes I have ever seen—_ "

A silencing charm shot at Scorpius and this time successfully landed with acute precision.

The blond raised an offensive finger.

Albus, ignoring this, drew his fork and slowly took his first bite. He chewed irritably, swallowed, wincing as it stung going down his throat. Then he did it again. And again.

x

"Your reflexes are slow," his father said, throwing a bright blue hex at him.

His brain strained to summon a wandless shield. The origins of a weak fluorescent bubble formed, before it was immediately shattered by the blue light emitted from his Stone-wielding father's hand. Albus found his rattling limbs skid backwards along a burst of wind. A wince overtook his features as he regrouped his bony legs, tried to maintain his posture against the harshness of the elements.

"Hit me harder," he shuddered.

"Albus."

"I said _harder_."

Per his request, a vicious stream of silver zinged through the air, across the span of trees, and within seconds he was blasted to the ground. His head throbbed with heavy pain and a slickness ran down his forearm.

"Albus!"

It was covered in a grotesque amount of blood dribbling from the wrist to the elbow.

"It's fine," he muttered as his father came running over. "It's just a cut."

But his father was worriedly shaking his head as he bent down to cast a healing charm with the Stone. "Your skin is too fragile. You're not well enough to do this."

"I need to be," he snapped. "I _have_ to be."

Harry sighed.

"Let's take it—"

"I won't take it even _slower_."

Grunting off the pain, his thin limbs quivered as he lifted to his feet. His frail ankle twisted under his weight and his father cast a quick arm to wrap him before he fell. He was like a leaf, weak and quick to crumble at the slightest blow of wind.

His head was still spinning and a heavy pain ached inside his gut but a moment later he was on his feet again, in the combative stance he assumed a million times in life. Magic was muscle memory, right? He gritted his teeth, trying to summon his violent fury to steel his nerves. This pain that came when he dueled—that was good pain. He _needed_ this pain, this suffering to improve. His body, as fragile as it was, would just have to adjust. He had put it through hell before and he would do it again.

"Hit me again."

"Albus," his father sighed. He watched as the man tucked the Stone away.

"Why not?" he barked, outraged.

"Because I don't want to keep _hurting_ you."

A sneer drew over his face. This was the man who had trained Albus by repeatedly hitting him with the _Cruciatus_ until it had dulled his pain receptors. Until he couldn't feel anything at all. And if this pain, this hurt, this _damned_ emotion was the thing holding him back from progress...then they just needed to make it disappear again.

[wait]

An idea.

"Hit me with the Cruciatus," Albus commanded.

His father stared in bewilderment.

"We're not doing that again."

Albus, infuriated now, cast a hex to yank his father forward by the collar and force his gaze.

" **This** is _your_ fault," he hissed, flicking his cold eyes in gesture to his weak body. "And you _will_ fix what _you_ broke."

"Let go," Harry sighed, his voice weary now; It infuriated Albus how he could never frighten his father no matter how hard he tried. "I'm not hitting you with the Cruciatus and that is final. I'll train you humanely or we won't train at all."

He felt himself seethe. His father's cherry-picked morality was completely useless in times of actual need.

"There is no humanity in progress," he stated coldly, relinquishing the man. "I want to restore my progress. My mind won't cooperate. It's reset. Break it in again. Punish it. _Punish_ me."

"Stop it," his father insisted, disturbed by the prospect. "I'm not punishing you...If your thoughts are clouded, find another way to clear them."

Albus gave up. He strode away, collapsed to sit on the ground by the lake's edge, buried his head in his hands, and drew a pained, heavy sigh.

What was he without Magic? _Who_ was he without Magic?

Nothing. No one.

He could feel his father's pitiful stare upon him.

"I wish you'd lift those restraining orders off your family. They want desperately to see you."

Albus blinked, glanced up. He scowled over his shoulder at the drastic change of subject.

"My family is dead," he reminded bitterly.

His family had died nine months ago. Not just his sister. His entire _family_. For Rose had played every role, she'd been every person in his life at every turn...She'd always looked out for him, even to her own detriment...He no longer knew what to do with himself. He felt like a child who had been orphaned.

His father was watching him a troubled frown.

"James really wants to—"

"No," came the cutting response.

His father sighed, coming over to sit beside him, though not too close, for Albus abhorred proximity to his father, and his father was well informed of this. Theirs was a working relationship—between student and teacher—and Albus had mentally determined that was all it would ever be.

And still, his father kept talking.

"What about Lily?"

x

The last time he'd seen his little sister—his _actual_ sister—was when he'd left home at sixteen.

She had been a sobbing, snotty thirteen-year-old girl, kept under the thumb of James, and he had resented both her and James for it.

Now she was nineteen, and tall, and standing before him.

"Hi," she said shyly, a bit fearfully.

Albus said nothing.

She held out a bouquet of flowers. She had brought them for him to counter the blandness of his hospital room. Albus did not care for flowers really, beauty was frivolous, useless; beautiful things bored him; he had better things to apply his mind towards.

Lily was watching him uncertainty, with anxiety, as if still afraid of the scary brother she'd probably heard a thousand terrible things about from James.

But this Lily did not exist in the shadow of her family. Albus observed at the details, the black nail polish, the halter top. There was a faint bruise on her neck which bore semblance to a hickey—his sister was sexually active, adventurous, rebellious. She was used to disobeying their mum, getting her way with boys much to James' disapproval. She had changed.

He studied her face as it flitted between a thousand different emotions to make sense of this encounter with her long-missing brother. He saw anxiety, sadness, and there was also the delicate femininity, the temperamental urge to cry—much like his Rose Pose, Lily was also a crier.

He knew his silence was unnerving her. He didn't care. He wanted to see what she'd do. If she'd make the effort.

Slowly, ever so slowly, she moved at him, as if any sudden movement might shatter the delicate quiet. So very carefully, soft slender arms came around his neck and for the first time in nine months Albus found himself wrapped in the warmth and shelter of a female embrace. She smelled soft and comforting, like coconut, and maybe cigarettes—so they had that in common.

"Hi big brother," she laughed through tears, fingers ruffling at his hair, grazing the bruises that made him wince slightly. "Been a long time—Look at you."

"Look at me," Albus murmured, echoing her words, and pressed a quick kiss to her soft cheek. "Look at you."

Lily giggled at the gesture, and he leant his thoroughly ruffled head tiredly against her shoulder. She was soft and warm, so affectionate, different from the cold, clinical touches he was tired to receiving. He did not know why he felt so drawn, but he wanted her to hold him for a long time, though he knew he could not ask that.

She pulled away after a few seconds, smiling at him through tears. She looked nervous, so very jittery, as if any second his expression might harden and he'd shove her away, as he had done so many times in youth. It didn't help that he was all bandages and bruises and bones.

"Do you...need anything?" she asked with caution.

Albus gave a tired nod, before pulling her into another embrace and tickling her sides, eliciting another giggle.

He found he rather liked hearing his sister laugh.

X

The next day, Albus did not meet his father at their training field as they had planned—he spent it with Lily.

She'd wanted to take him to a nearby show at a muggle theater (going anywhere in the wizarding world would lead to Albus getting bombarded with reporters). While Albus could appreciate the ingenuity of muggle technology, the subject matter of the show itself was rather dull—it was a famous, though dated film called _Titanic_ —but it was not really about the intracies of mass drowning or the carnage of a sinking ship, and so Albus was already bored. It had frivolous characters who did stupid, illogical things for reasons he did not understand or appreciate and did not care to—his sister disliked it when he dismantled every glaring flaw in detail. But she said he could choose for the next time.

Afterwards they went to get ice cream.

"One strawberry please," Lily said, smiling.

Albus leant in past her shoulder to add: "I want a strawberry too."

Lily turned her head to peer at him with amused suspicion. "You hate strawberry. "

"Nonsense. I like everything Lily likes."

Delivering his cone to his hand, she kept her pace slow for him. They walked, side by side, Albus clutching at his walking stick, quivering slightly with each step, as they strode to the bench.

"I wish you'd been nicer when we were kids," she muttered, a bit sullenly, sinking down beside him. "I always thought you hated me"

Albus watched her face.

"Hated James," he clarified. "Hated you by proxy." He then glanced, awkwardly, down at his knobby hands. "But you did always throw the worst tantrums. That often made me want to kill you in your sleep."

Lily's face contorted into an atrocious pout, under the assumption he was kidding. Albus truthfully wasn't—he really did want to kill his little sister at one point, though it was a short-sighted urge in his life-long desire for murder. And it was well in the past now. With a disparaging eye roll, he swiped the end of his sister's mouth with a napkin.

"As messy as ever," he criticized. "Roll up your sleeves or the ice cream will drip and stain your pretty blouse."

"As mean as ever," Lily huffed, rolling her sleeves at his command.

Albus smirked.

"You need a bit of meanness...Something tells me you're far too used to getting what you want."

Lily gave a guilty grin, certainly not denying the fact. Then she was fishing a cigarette out of pocket, but Albus swiped it for himself just as soon as she lit the end.

"Give it back," she complained. "It's my last."

Albus held it out of reach.

"A good sister shares," he tsked.

Lily wrinkled her nose. "Gross."

"We're both eating strawberry, it'll be fine."

They ate their cones in quiet for a few minutes, staring out at absolutely nothing, with Lily giving her bored-looking older brother expectant looks and nudges.

"So are you still in school?" Albus said, finally summoning the motivation from the deep recesses within him to make small-talk. "Do you have any skill? Occupation? What is it that you do?"

"Do?"

"Yes...what interests you?"

Lily gave another guilty smile.

"Boys. I like doing boys."

His cone nearly slipped from his hands. A glob of pink splattered to his lap and he irritably procured a napkin.

"Brilliant," he murmured, busy wiping the strawberry stain off his pants. "I lived this long just to find out my sister's a whore."

"Oi!" A hand batted at his arm, albeit playfully. "Don't call me that. "

He rolled his eyes, throwing his ice cream away—she'd been right, he hated strawberry—and leaning back onto the bench to take a drag. Slowly, he released a wisp a smoke into the pleasant air of the pleasantly boring afternoon. How unpleasant pleasantness was. There was nothing to solve, nothing to kill, nothing to occupy his mind. He did not belong here. His existence had no purpose. There was no God to give him purpose. God was dead. In truth he had fabricated that fantasy, for his father was only a man, and God had never actually existed. Albus too wished he had never existed, but his father continually refused to let him fling himself off a rooftop.

He idly wondered what the Chinese Dark Lord was up to this particular afternoon.

Then Lily looked at him imploringly, so with an irritated sigh he passed the rest of the cigarette over. She put the end in her own mouth.

"It was all shit, by the way," she said, bitterly puffing smoke. "Our childhood. You thought it was bad for you, but it was shit for us all. We all suffered."

"James didn't suffer enough," he uttered darkly under his breath.

"Fuck James," she snapped. "Dad was always gone. Mum was always drunk. And James took the opportunity to be a controlling prick."

He glanced over, sharp brow raised, at his seething sister.

She passed over the cigarette, once more, this time in solidarity of a hatred for James. Naturally, he took it.

"So you've pursued prostitution out of stupid rebellion?" he said bluntly, taking the end in his own mouth again.

"I'm not a prostitute, I just like sex—And honestly, I was making a _joke_." Lily glared at him, for a second, softening only when he drew in to kiss her cheek. "And look at you—you went as far as to kill the Dark Lord and get yourself _ripped to shreds_ out of stupid rebellion."

"At least my rebellion has been productive, Lily."

Lily stared at his gaunt body, eyes softening with tears. The question she was thinking: _Has it?_

"I'm so glad you're alive," she confessed. "Please, please, _please_ , don't go off and try to get yourself killed again, Albus."

He watched her for a frail, tired second.

"Give me a reason not to." His bony fingers clasped at hers.

X

X

X

"Focus, clear your head of all useless thoughts," his father reminded, pacing around him with swift, purposeful momentum, shooting hexes intermittently. "Magic is—"

"In the wizard, not the wand," Albus finished irritably, fiercely smashing through a beam of green with a blazing blue shield. "I _know_."

"Good," said his father. "Now apply it. Reach out with your mind and _wield_ it."

Red, blue, silver, green, colors torpedoed meshing in the space between him and his father. Bullets of light came at him with paper-thin precision. Sprightly dodging one hex, he threw another over with a white flash of blinding magic. Blackness swerved in all directions at once consuming him.

Green-eyes shone bright, mouth etched in a fierce snarl as a dark wisp hurtled at him from the Stone—A golden arc flashed from his prosthetic arm as he aimed a hex, propelling the wisps backwards and nearly throwing his _father_ off.

He didn't though. His father reacted faster than Albus could've possibly expected, lurching on his knees but landing on his feet.

"Improvement," His father commended. "You're focusing so much better...You've been eating."

Albus wiped a bit of blood from the edge of his mouth, a smirk reigning.

x

"Oi, Potter, tell me something!"

Scorpius hollered at him incessantly across the hospital room, balancing on the back legs of a chair.

"I've been trying and trying for _ages_ to get you to eat—then little sodding Lily trollops along out of _fucking nowhere_ , and suddenly you're going out to dinner with her every night?"

Albus, standing in front of the mirror in the adjacent bathroom, dressed in a fashionable suit, was busy tying a tie around his neck.

"And how come you never get dressed up for dinner with me?" The blond jibed again. "For all the time and energy I've invested in you, I fucking deserve it...You're the worst sodding girlfriend I've ever had."

Albus, per usual, ignored the stream of useless comments leaving Malfoy's mouth, parting his black hair with careful precision to ensure he looked adequately handsome.

"Don't you have anything else to do, Malfoy?" he said dully.

The blond gave a shrug. "Not especially—I'm off work, there's no game on tonight—there's nothing to _do_ , no danger or riots to avoid—and everyone else is _boring..._ Everything is _so_ disturbingly normal now." He gave a loud sigh that was aggravated and dejected and a little bit comical all the same. "Who knew with the Dark Lord being gone, life would get so _meaningless_."

Albus fully understood this lamentation by his blond companion—but he was not about to admit it. A disdain for the mundane—and possibly criminal tendencies—had been what had bonded the two Slytherins in childhood and now it continued to do so in adulthood.

"What happened to your pastime. Not fun to do anymore?" Albus shot a sly, knowing smirk through the mirror.

"Broke up with me," Malfoy grumbled.

"Snapped to her senses rather quickly."

Albus was swift to sidestep the stinging spell that came hurtling from Malfoy's wand—his reflexes had improved considerably. The wonders eating regularly could do. The wonders having a sister could do.

"Said I was—arrogant and emotionally unavailable. Whatever the fuck that means," the blond continued with irritation, tucking his wand away.

Albus was busy observing at his face in the mirror, tucking at the ends of his mouth to ease them out of their rigid bounds, so that it would easier to form facial expressions for Lily. "Wouldn't know," he said boredly, "I've never heard those words in my life."

Loud snorts of ironic laughter burst, followed by the sounds of a small crash—Malfoy had toppled over in his chair in amusement.

Albus spun around to lean against the sink with a smirk.

"Just find another one, Malfoy…That is what people do, don't they?"

A nearly hostile sort of annoyance flitted the blond's face as he sat back up.

"It's fucking _hard_ , Potter," he gritted his teeth, leaning in on his thighs. "You _know_ that."

Albus' face maintained a deliberate absence of emotion.

"Yes it _is_ ," Scorpius nearly growled now, in response to his loaded silence. "Can't quite get past _it_...you of all people _know_ that."

It was a brutal assumption, but it had been building for a while, for years, for it was likely that Malfoy had always sort of known. And what he wanted now, in his grief, was solidarity. Acknowledgement that the two boys were in the same boat. He watched Albus intently, perhaps even desperately, reading for that affirmation of ...something.

Once more, Albus presented no reaction whatsoever.

Malfoy blinked, near tears now.

"Fuck you," he snipped bitterly. "She's bleeding _dead_ , and you still can't fucking say it. Not even to me. Fuck _you_."

Albus strode out the door without response.

X

X

X

Hugo had been spending more and more nights at Lorcan's laboratory—slash—penis-shaped home, brainstorming with the Unspeakable, working to figure out just how they could bring his sister back.

He had relayed all the information Albus had told him—from the many bath-giving-time stories his older cousin had shared—to Lorcan. Unlike Uncle Harry, his cousin had not been secretive about the real details. Or perhaps, he understood the importance of Hugo needing to know the truth about his sister.

There was this monster called the _Creature._ He masqueraded as Death, or an ancient god, but really he was just a really old wizard. Oh—also that he wanted to eat magic.

He had taken Rose.

His older cousin was certain that the Creature had killed Rose, because there was no reason for the Creature _not_ to kill Rose. But, he said, if he hadn't, there was no way to reach Rose unless they crossed into another plane of existence and disrupted the all the barriers pathways that existed between the realms of the Living, the Dead, and the Space In Between.

But Hugo figured it was the least _he_ could do for Rosie given that she had disrupted the sacred boundaries of Death to save him. What did cosmic boundaries matter, really, when your sibling was in trouble?

And luckily, a Death-obsessed 'loon' like Lorcan was the perfect person to help him in the task.

Lorcan said Rose had told him tidbits about a mysterious figure on the Other Side as well...She had mentioned a man who was not a man, who didn't have any distinguishable features but had talons for hands. Albus too had mentioned talons when describing the Creature. Lorcan was certain it was the same figure.

Lorcan was busy pacing back and forth in his usual immersed manner, managing to dodge the many kneazles that ran amuck around his legs with impressive dexerity.

"So," he began "Three worlds exist—"

"The world of the Living, the Dead, and the In Between," Hugo finished, all before sneezing.

"Right-O." Lorcan wrote them out on his large whiteboard, drawing a large 'X' over 'Living'. "So we know that Rose isn't in _this_ world—which means she _has_ to be in the other two. Now it's just a matter of narrowing down just which one, so that we can engineer the Veil to take us there."

"Which one do _you_ think it is?" Hugo asked. He already knew what his older cousin thought—Rose was dead—but Lorcan was also a brilliant mind. Not to mention, Death was his field of _speciality_. His opinion mattered the most.

Lorcan screwed his eyes in concentration, thinking comically deeply about the matter.

"It is impossible to formulate a correct answer based on what we know," he burst with an owlish blink. "We need to learn more about this creature fellow...An old god, you say?"

Hugo furiously shook his mop of curls. "My cousin said he's just a pretender."

"And err.. _How_ does—your cousin know this?" Lorcan questioned meekly.

Hugo shrugged. In truth he had no idea how Albus knew half the things he did.

"Oh _right..._ my cousin said he met the Creature once," Hugo piped. "They had brunch together and...weird shit happened...and then he made Albus promise to kill the Dark Lord." _You keep what you kill._

Lorcan's eyes burned with intrigue. "Did he now?"

"He said the Creature's knowledge was limited. That he didn't always know what realm people were in...He didn't know _if_ Uncle Harry was dead or alive."

"And therefore, he cannot be the God Death," Lorcan finished, pleased his understanding of the situation was now restored. "Astute thinking. So this creature fellow...he's some sort of human aberration ...But the question is... _Who_ is he?"

"Someone important, right?" Hugo piped, looking over the wide array of wizarding history books they had already spread over the kitchen counter. "A big name."

"Not necessarily," Lorcan surmised. "It may be someone who has evaded all _detection_ by history. It is someone history has erased."

"So you think the Creature is a nobody?"

"I think the Creature _has_ to be a nobody."

X

X

X

Pulsing bass music pounded at his skull.

Albus'd only been there twenty minutes, and already he was being pawed at; He elbowed his way through the slick dance floor masked by gaudy strobe lighting, the crowd of hard, gyrating bodies, in search of his sister; Stray hands slid up his chest and one attempted to bead through his carefully-styled hair; A sudden surge of killer instinct made him grab it, adeptly twist the wrist until the intruder—the dancing girl—backed away in alarmed pain. No one, minus Lily, was to touch his hair without expressive permission.

"Bastard!" the girl cried.

The problem was that he was already, very high; The heat was crawling over his body, seeping in through his blazer jacket; He should've kept a better eye on his sister; Lily had brought him to this muggle club, but Albus had abandoned her to engage in one dark-undertoned conversation with the right unkempt muggle-in-a-trench-coat in purchase of a small pouch with white powder. He'd then allowed her to run off, while he found a span of cushioned seats, and rudely, and rather impatiently, shooed away the group of attractive girls sitting around so that there was more than enough room for him to sprawl out arrogantly and comfortably with his long legs.

 _"Bastard,"_ one'd hissed, as they all left.

He hadn't batted an eyelid at the insult, for he then began to realize nearly all girls everywhere had the exact same nickname for him, and also because he was too busy drawing lines of ivory on the adjacent table. Eyes'd flickered when he took the hit. Splaying his head back against at the seat, he'd folded his hands across his chest, and waited for the drug to take took its natural course. In the midst of doing all this, he had lost sight of his sister.

Now, at last, he spotted her.

"You're so so sexy, just pick one or two of the girls and dance—they all want you," Lily hiccuped drunkenly when he approached her again.

He observed perplexedly down at her hand, pressing to his chest, trying to shoo him away.

Unfortunately for his sister, Albus was not the sort to be shooed away. He stood in his black blazer, tense and stoic, like a brick wall, amid the crowd of loose, gyrating bodies, glaring icily at the image of his little sister writhing seductively against a pair of muggle men.

"Let's leave, Lily," he snapped, glaring violently as the blokes on both ends of his seductively dancing sister began to hump her to stimulate copulation. Lily, to his rising horror, seemed to be enjoying this attention. She was shifting her hips and drunkenly swaying to the throbbing music.

Something murderous flared inside him. He quickly swallowed it. It was in poor taste to kill muggles.

With two deftly delivered shoves, he peeled the boys off Lily and flung them to the floor.

"Oi!"

Albus shot one dark, predatory stare, and they understood not to try his patience, hastily scurrying out of sight.

He then gripped his intoxicated sister and hauled her tiny body over his shoulder, much to her cries of protest.

A silent hex shot from his prosthetic, and he forcibly and crudely parted the crowd; screams rang out as the invisible force yanked gyrating bodies apart. Commandingly stalking through, Albus gave no second thought to the alarming scene he'd just caused.

"Where are we going," Lily said blearily, as he carried her out. "Albus—I was having _fun_."

He swiftly brought her down when they were outside. She was rather drunk, so he held her against the brick wall by the arm.

"Why did you do that?" she slurred, laughing now.

"I was going to kill someone."

"Stop," she giggled, under the impression he was kidding. Albus wasn't. "It's just a bit of fun. I don't take them seriously, you know."

"I'd prefer if you didn't take them at all," he muttered, yanking her chin up to make her look at him.

Lily's pouty face contorted.

"Are you going to be overly protective like James," she demanded.

Albus' jaw clenched, but he removed his grip from her arm, and watched as she collapsed to the floor on her knees without his support.

"Help me up," she then demanded like a child. "Take me back to my flat."

Albus stared down with cruelly amused eyes.

"You can't have it both ways," he scoffed, lighting a cigarette.

"Yes I _can_ , it's part of being a good brother," Lily gritted her teeth bitterly at him. "You owe me after a childhood of being a complete shit."

Lily's argument, much to his dismay, was flawless. Albus had no rebuttal, for he had never been a proper brother to his actual little sister, so he dropped the cigarette, smashed it to bitter ashes with his shoe, and tossed her over his shoulder once more. With a flash of apparition, they were outside her apartment. He mangled the keys from her jeans pocket and kicked open the door to let them both inside Lily's tiny one person flat.

"You're messy," he complained, setting her down roughly and peering around the cluttered living space with inspecting eyes. "Has no one ever taught you a cleaning charm?"

"You're so rude," Lily grumbled, shuffling disorientingly to her fridge to grab another bottle of beer. "Were you always so rude? I can't remember...I don't remember much about you at all."

"I was always rude," he assured her, drawing a line of white powder across an empty space on the countertop. He drew his head down and quickly ingested it.

Lily watched, intrigued.

"Can I have—"

"No. Never. Go lay down."

"Be a good brother and come tuck me in."

Albus' brows raised at this command but he let his adult sister playfully, drunkenly, drag him into her bedroom by the arm.

Upon entering, Lily stupidly stumbled over a pair of bunny slippers, letting him know that help indeed was needed. With an irritable eyeroll, Albus descended to grip her waist tightly, lift her up, and toss her on the bed and then orient her so she was in a comfortable position to sleep.

"Shoes off," he ordered.

She yanked them off.

"What else," she asked, with more sultry breathiness than needed.

A cold and disturbing feeling washed over Albus. He blinked, utterly thrown.

He glared.

"Nothing else," came the snappish response.

Lily scowled at him.

"It's a joke, dummy."

"I don't like those kinds of jokes."

"You act like a jealous boyfriend but you can't handle it when I make a sex joke? You can't have it both ways either you know," she slurred with irreverent laughter—his sister, evidently, had her own demons. "Anyway, it's just a joke. It was seriously _just a joke_. "

A hex shot a pillow to her face, telling her to shut up. Yanking open one of her messy drawers, he pulled out a stray cigarette, lit it, and sat at the edge of the bed, facing away from her, seething from behind his teeth. He wanted to bury his head in his hands. He wanted to tear out his eyeballs. Possibly, he wanted to kill her. And then himself. Even if it was a joke, why did she have to go _there_? It made him feel monstrous and filthy—His curse, the damned _boggart_ , was surfacing again. Did he have to live in shame forever? Did he deserve nothing decent? Everything he wanted either died or grew fangs.

Lily began reaching for an alcohol bottle again and he stood, took it from the side table and angrily dumped the remainder into the bathroom sink.

"Hey!"

"Alcohol is a vile, mind rotting poison," he hissed contemptuously at her. "I'm going to clean out your fridge and your mind and your life and kill every waste of space bloke that crosses your door and then we are going to restore your brain cells."

Lily scowled at him. "You mean you're going to be a controlling psychopathic freak."

"I'm going to be a good brother, yes."

His sister groaned, head falling flat against the pillow. "Our family is _so_ fucked up."

She then passed out.

X

Lily woke up, writhing and twitching as she yanked her bedsheet over her face to shield it from sunlight, groaning at the severity of her headache.

"I'm a good brother," Albus stated—snapped, sitting at bedside as he handed her the potent tonic he had spent all night preparing for this imminent hangover.

A veteran at taking shots, Lily quickly sat and downed it in one go. With the expulsion of a sigh of relief, she collapsed back against her pillow, a pleasant sensation flitting her chest and spreading to her extremities.

She felt a warm, chaste kiss press to her forehead.

"Good brother," she gave an oddly content giggle, rubbing at the spot. "What are your plans today, good brother?"

His shoulders seemed to relax.

"I want to keep an eye on you but I have some potion materials to collect from the apothecary—will you come with?" her brother said, observing at her face with caution.

Lily nodded, beaming at him.

"Are you good at potions, Lily?" he queried.

She shook her head.

"Then what are you good at—and don't say boys."

She rolled her eyes. "In school I was always good at..." She thought for a moment. "Runes."

Albus gave a terse nod of understanding. "We will visit the bookshop as well. I'll buy you the best books on Runes—A few titles come to mind. I'll make you a scholar of the Runic form."

"That's sweet." She grinned. "You're sweet."

"Good brother," Albus corrected, sternly, eyes narrowing once more. "I'm a good brother."

"Good brother," she repeated, biting an impish smile.

X

X

X

Feet shuffled on instinct. Mouth spun counter spells by seconds. His body, even in its stupid, pathetic, broken form, was a machine. It made for magic, _meant_ for magic.

"That was...outstanding, Albus. I think you've finally passed your mental hurdle."

"I still have a lot of improvement to make..." he panted, knees collapsing to the ground, taking a large swig of water after their training session. "You need to start teaching me to use the Stone."

Harry gave him a troubled look. "Albus..."

"In case something happens to you, someone else ought to know to wield the Stone, shouldn't they?"

"Yes but..." His father sounded reluctant. He sighed. "I told myself I wouldn't involve you with the creature's affairs again."

Albus returned a steady stare.

"I've made considerable improvement."

"That you have," his father agreed. "But I can't forget what happened ...Watching you die was horrific. I don't want to put you in harm's way again."

Albus did not meet his father's emotional stare, instead, gazed cuttingly out to the trees.

"I've been in harm's way my entire life," he said bluntly. "You won't find another successor for the Stone who'll be as comfortable with danger—it's a matter of trust." He shot a dark, questioning look at his father. "Do you not trust me?"

His father came to sit next to him. With aching knees, he descended, and a hand came to rest at Albus' weary shoulder—It was not the half-gestures of childhood. This hand was firm, with clear motive, and stayed at his shoulder.

"I trust you more than anyone else in the world," Harry assured, through a crinkled smile, and for the first time Albus did not flinch away.

"But it is a grave responsibility. After everything that's happened...Is it still what you want?"

Albus gave a hollow stare down at his prosthetic arm.

"It'll give me something to do," he sighed, at last.

X

X

X

They needed to devise a potion to help them safely cross the Veil.

Lorcan's abode had become a fortress for these trials. Cauldrons occupied every tabletop and open space, alongside jars and bottles of miscellaneous items. Toadstools, nettles, goat bladders, pig eyes, assorted herbs and enchanted waters. Reference books were laid haphazardly open all over the floor. And in the midst of it was the production of a constant stream of smoke and fumes, flowing out the window while charmed mops carelessly swung to clean up spilled fluids.

"We're missing something...something. I don't know what."

"Flobberworms?" Hugo offered, for that was the only potions ingredient he understood.

"No—Hugo— _no,_ " came a stern command, as the young boy rushed to add them to Lorcan's latest brew. "Please step away from all my things," the Unspeakable warned, with owlishly wide eyes. "Never touch anything _ever_. "

Hugo scowled.

"I want to help," he insisted.

"Then come here, I need another sample of your blood."

With an aggrieved sigh, Hugo folded up his sleeve as he climbed atop one of Lorcan's many work benches to be a probed with a needle once more. Because Hugo had once crossed the boundaries of Life and death, Lorcan believed his blood contained an immunity to Death, a protection from the harsh climate of the other realms ...It was a key ingredient for the potion.

A flash of apparation surged through the room, blowing back papers and books, and a blond boy stood arrogantly in the center.

"Is Hugo here--"

The questioned went unfinished as Scorpius' mouth fell open in alarm of what he was seeing. He had, evidently, found more than what he'd bargained for.

Hugo hastily rolled down his sleeve, slid off the table, and disappeared from sight.

"You're not seeing this," Lorcan said in a strained, panicked voice.

"I'm not seeing this," Scorpius agreed in a strained, panicked voice. "But...hypothetically speaking, How many laws are being broken in here?"

"Twenty-six, Scorp!" Hugo called from across the room now. He had quickly donned an apron, and was chopping flobberworms for the potion though Lorcan had expressively told him not to touch anything _ever_. "I looked it up, don't worry."

Scorp did not look reassured in the slightest. He was beginning to turn a sickly green. "And how many years in Azkaban, do you reckon? Still hypothetically speaking."

"A lifetime sentence, twice over," Hugo piped again.

It was then that Scorpius shot a sharp look at an increasingly flustered-looking Lorcan.

"We're trying to bring the Ressurectionist back," the Unspeakable coughed into his shoulder.

Scorpius blinked.

"She's dead," he said, coldly, matter-of-factly.

"Death doesn't have to be the end...It wasn't for Hugo—And anyway—It is possible that she may be in another realm entirely."

Scorpius have a hoarse laugh, glancing disbelievingly between the Unspeakable and Hugo.

"I should report this, shouldn't I?"

"Scorp!" Hugo objected, angry.

Scorpius shook his head incredulously. "Hugo, mate, look—he's a _loon_. He's as bad as those conspiracy theorists that believe the Loch Ness monster exists."

"It does," Lorcan said, blinking insistently, "My brother's seen him—beside the point, I know," he backtracked, realizing he wasn't helping his case. "And, anyway, I have a viable method to bring the Ressurectionist back."

Scorp raised a skeptical brow. "Go on then."

Lorcan paced over to his large whiteboards to face the large, badly-drawn (by Hugo) sketch of the Veil.

"We have _this,_ " he declared, extending his arms out in grand gesture to it.

Scorpius stared for a moment.

"You mean the Ministry does," he said.

"Well." Lorcan put his hands at his hips as he spun around. "I am an employee. What belongs to the Ministry technically belongs to me."

"You could lose your job fucking around with the Veil," Scorpius informed, in a serious tone. "Provided you don't die first."

Lorcan glanced over at Hugo. "I see why he's your sister's ex now."

"I'm _not_ her—"

"It's not Scorp's fault he's normal," Hugo protested. "His normalcy is what makes him endearing."

"He's a stickler for rules," Lorcan declared. "I wouldn't date him either."

Scorpius stared between the two boys, his brow twitching in irritation.

"The lot of you are tossers," he said heatedly. He stalked to the door as if to angrily slam it and storm out, but then stopped, and just as angrily stalked back.

"Come up with a solid plan and I'll sodding _cross_ the Veil to drag that ginger idiot back," Scorpius seethed, facing the two boys.

"A solid plan." Lorcan ruffled his hair sheepishly. "Haven't gotten there yet. Will take me... a bit—I can only work so fast."

Scorp quirked a brow at Hugo.

"Wait—" The blond blinked. "Why _isn't_ Potter here—this is exactly _his_ thing."

There was a morbid pause.

"Uncle Harry said he nearly tossed himself from a rooftop," Hugo professed, and Scorp's eyes bulged. "And he's just now starting to eat proper and get better after...you know... hanging out with his _real_ sister, so I don't want to..." the small boy trailed off meekly.

Scorpius frowned.

"'Course." He shoved hands into his pockets, and looked guiltily away at something that was not there. "But you'll have to tell him eventually. No way we pull off shit this illegal and dangerous _without_ him."

"Hugo can recruit this scary fellow when the time comes, right Hugo?" Lorcan said.

"When did I become the Albus-whisperer?" Hugo blanched, terrified by the prospect. "I do _not_ want that job."

He shot an anxious look at Scorpius, as if to say: _You do it._

The blond raised his brows in alarm.

"Nope," he said, quickly shoving hands into pockets again.

"I can't do it, he'll kill _me_!" Hugo insisted, genuinely freaking out. "He told me the story about how he chopped off the Dark Lord's hand and he's constantly going on about how he misses killing things...and I'm the most killable!"

"Potter would never kill you, Hugo. You're family and you're wonderfully charming," Scorpius promised.

"And you're also the _least_ killable, Hugo. You're a horcru—" Lorcan started, before breaking off with an awkward cough. "I mean...nevermind. That's—not entirely relevant right now."

X

X

X

"Come look at my rune translations," Lily giggled, pulling at his sleeve.

Albus smirked, sliding next to his sister on the library bench. Wrapping an affectionate arm around her middle, he held her close to him as he surveyed her work.

"I'll have to grade it thoroughly," he informed. She groaned, trying to slide off the bench but he kept her trapped with a firm grip at her waist. "I see quite a few mistakes. I won't go easy on you."

" _Noooo_ ," she laughed, trying to ruffle at his hair with a hand, though he swatted it away. "This is terrible. It's like being in school _all over again._ "

"It's really not bad," Albus commented, going intently over her translations with a red quill. "You keep missing the same few symbols. It is easy to rectify these mistakes."

"Let me see, Professor," Lily teased. "Oh _no_. You've _covered_ it with marks...I'm going to cry."

"No crying, I'll give you a book to help." His hand squeezed at her shoulder in reassurance, before he slid away and swiftly paced through the expansive field of books in search of the correct volume. He brought it back to her, placed it on the table, even went so far as to turn it to the exact pages for her.

Lily keenly went through the text and recorded the notes into the runes journal Albus was making her keep.

"Have you ever considered teaching, Albus? You could apply for a position at Hogwarts—they're reopening next term.

"I don't want to teach," he said dully.

"Why not?"

For a moment Albus did not respond.

"I only want to teach my sister," he said quietly, leaning in to kiss her forehead. "She is my favorite pupil. So clever and hardworking and lovely."

"And not a whore, right?"

His eyes drew to violent slits. "I'll kill anyone who calls you that."

Lily laughed, a bit nervously. She was beginning to realize it wasn't a joke when Albus talked about killing people.

"Do you want to grab dinner before we go to my flat?" she said.

Albus had already grabbed her coat and placed it at her shoulders. He then donned his own coat.

"What do you want to get?" she said, as he held the door open for them.

They walked side by side, arm in arm, through the streets of London.

"Anything is fine with me," he dismissed.

"You never pick," she whined.

"I never have an appetite," he murmured. "I only eat because you eat."

Her smile twitched for a second.

"That's no good, Albus. You should tell the healers."

He gave an uncaring shrug, waiting for the traffic to stop before pulling her across the road. After that, the subject was discarded.

"What are you thinking about?" she probed, within a few minutes of walking quietly.

He smirked sharply at her. "Guess."

"I don't want to play this game," she groaned. "I'm bad at it. Just _tell_ me."

His eyes darted between her and the path ahead. He picked up the pace and she followed.

"I want to take you on an adventure. Somewhere you can apply your translation skills...I'm going to make my sister the best translator in the country."

"Oooh." Lily grinned, gripping his arm with excitement. "Where are we going?"

"I have a few locations in mind," he commented. "I haven't sorted it out yet—perhaps Egypt."

"Ancient Egyptian Gods for you." Lily raised her brows mischievously. "Hot Egyptian boys for me. That'll be fun. "

"Lily please," he muttered. "Or I'll cross out Egypt."

" _Don't_ cross out Egypt. I want a foreign boyfriend. I _need_ one."

"Malfoy is foreign," he offered boredly.

"Stop trying to inflict your mate on me, Albus. I'm not dating anyone you think you can control."

"He is immeasurably rich and his mother is distantly French...I'll introduce you."

"What did I _just_ say?" She laughed.

After picking up a set of meals from a quaint little Chinese shop, they made it back to Lily's little flat, which, thanks to Albus' overseeing, was orderly to a fault. He had taught her a vast array of cleaning charms. There was also no alcohol in the kitchen and certainly no garments of any slimy blokes spending the night. Lily was so preoccupied with her Runes that she no longer had time to go out and party. Lily and Albus had also made a pact to start to quit smoking—although they were only at day three.

"You're going to crack before I do," Lily commented, as they entered, while Albus rummaged through her drawers to pull a set of utensils. "Your fingers are already twitching."

"No they're not."

"Yes they _are_."

Albus scoffed, washing his hands at the sink. "My mental fortitude is unparalleled."

"You just did cocaine yesterday again, Albus. I saw you."

"That's harmless," he dismissed.

"Fine, pretend you don't have a problem." Lily folded her arms. "I know how that goes."

He watched her face intently, almost humorously. Then: a smirk.

"What?"

His smirk sharpened.

" _What_?"

"Guess what I'm thinking." He folded his arms slyly across the counter.

"Stop, not again," she giggled, moving forward to smack his forehead. He dodged the playful blow. "You're _terrible_. No more games, just _tell_ me."

"Want me to tell you a secret, Lily?"

She nodded eagerly.

"You know the Dark Lord...well, I knew him for a decently long time ...He and I did cocaine together a few times. He was rather fond," he said wryly. "He's the one who introduced me."

"You're making that up," she laughed. "You bonded with the Dark Lord—No _way_ that's true."

"It's absolutely true," he said, opening their take-out bag and spreading the cartons of food out on the countertop. "He was...rather eccentric. Muggles tend to be."

"I heard that rumor," Lily commented. She opened a carton of rice and grabbed a pair of chopsticks. "You've had an eventful five years, haven't you?"

Albus' lips curved into a real genuine smile.

"I have. And do you want to know something, Lily?"

"What?"

"You're the best part of it all."

His sister beamed admiringly in turn. "Tell me more stories, Albus."

X

 **Pleaseee let me know what you're thinking!**

 **W** **e'll be getting back to some dark, evil action soon. I hope you enjoyed this chapter though. I wrote it at a different sort of pace.**


	42. Sin part 1

It had been ...an eternity...since she'd seen the sun.

It was a world of abject darkness, a human zoo labyrinth the Creature had built in which he kept those he had collected over the years. She'd been told she was lucky, for only the lucky got to live. But Rose did not feel lucky… She wished she'd been Albus… been ripped to shreds and died a premature death. But she did _not_ wish Albus had been her.

Outside her cage, others wandered. Lost souls that had already been devoured, once-wizards ridden of their magic. Writhing, senseless masses of flesh and filth, black and small and wrinkled, no longer semblant of anything human. Minute monsters. Expelled, exorcized, ripped apart, offered to the Creature as archaic sacrifices. Lambs for the slaughter. Cogs in the wheel.

She was not like them though. He had not sucked out her soul, he had not killed her, though he made her suffer in other ways.

The space between her legs ached.

A monster of sin and cruelty, or torture, of the most unimaginable horrors… it was impossible to imagine how something like him even came to _exist_.

She wished for death.

 _Why don't you just kill me?_

 _There is no point...You are like me. You have my hunger._ The Creature had intoned, his sneer a maiming mutilation that lurked behind the porcelain mystery of his mask. She knew nothing of him; he knew _everything_ of her. The eyes were an abyss, the darkness seared through her skin and blood, down to her bone.

Shuddering breaths left her body at the memory of their last encounter, her back rattling against the cage, like bone on bone. Filth froth in the grating between the stone slabs under her, crusting like the gunk that collected beneath her nails, cracked and jagged and yellowed. Her limbs had taken on a similar appearance, all sallow skin and gaunt angle. There was no light, no sun. No escape. She was in the darkest pit of hell.

She was, above all, hungry.

"Tom, where are you?" her voice, a mere, frail rasp— the sound of fraying vocal cords stretched too thin in the knobby tube of her throat. She no longer knew how to pray to a God—perhaps the devil would answer instead.

From behind her, outside the cage, spoke the shadow.

"I'm here."

A feral fear surged through her. It was Tom's pleasant voice—low, deep, baritone—but it was different ...It felt _closer_.

The voice came again, with words as black and sweet as molasses.

"Are you hungry, Rose?"

A turn of the head and there he stood, shoulders firm, looking as handsome and composed as she remembered ...It was the first human image she'd seen in…She didn't know how long, months, _years_? ...She was stunned.

Tom's hand reached across the black space and palmed at her cheek ...she _felt_ the contact.

Of course, she wasn't in the Living realm anymore, she was in—

Wherever she was, Voldemort could now _touch_ her.

This was too terrifying of a reality to handle. Their odd alliance—friendship—hinged on the fact was that he was dead and couldn't hurt her ...and now that protective barrier was gone. He could _kill_ her now.

With quivering legs she rose, and as frail as she was, drew the wand which she still possessed—though it was no point, she was too weak and broken to do any magic—and began to tentatively back away...

"Don't touch me" she whimpered, her bony arm shaking as it held the wand in threat.

Tom Riddle merely stared with a detached sort of amusement.

"It doesn't benefit me to kill you, Rose."

"You're _Voldemort_ ," she tried to snarl; her weakened voice only came out hoarse. Voldemort's dead body count was in the hundreds, if not the thousands, wasn't it?

"You could kill me just for sport."

"And what a waste that would be," came the flat response.

She glared brokenly from the emaciated lump that served as her face.

"Want me to prove that I won't harm you?"

"Yes."

Tom seemed to slink forward from the darkness itself, his white-lipped smile a stunning contrast to the shadows from whence he came.

Spidery fingers lazily lowered and Tom plucked the bounds from the lock to her cage with an elegant ease. The rusted door swung open and Rose, with sunken, blackened eyes, stared in something between apprehension and fatigued awe.

"Are you hungry, Rose?" he asked again. His beautiful smile chilled the hollow air. For Rose, who was surrounded by such ugliness and depravity, who felt and looked morbidly ugly—he was a boon. An angel offered in a time of plight.

And so she gave a frail, whimpering nod, lowering her wand. In what twisted world did she exist where Voldemort became her only point of human contact and comfort...It no longer mattered. She was alone and she needed to _survive_.

"Then come with me," he whispered, extending out his hand, crimson eyes caressing the outline of her morbidly emaciated form—She was rags and bones—as they trailed up to her bloodied, broken eyes.

"Rose Pose..." came the seductive murmur, but she was not really thinking about Albus anymore; Or Hugo; Had not for ages. There was no space in her mind for others—She was thinking only about _herself_ , her _own_ survival. Surrendering her private inhibitions, she grasped Voldemort's hand, allowing him to pull her through the stoic darkness, bare, bony limbs frantically slipping over the damp and cobbled flooring etched with the grime and filth of human remains.

She did not know where Tom was taking her or why—but anywhere was better than she had been—the path felt endless—she was only glad to be out of the Creature's reach...

They travelled for an indeterminable amount of time. There was no sun and moon, no day and night. There was no sense of Time in the space where she now existed.

A noise reverberated at distance as an echo, the screams of ten hundred voices, of souls lost in the empty abyss: ebbing and flowing like an audile wave. It was an ocean farce, a sea of noisy pageantry, numbing to her senses and deafening to her mind.

They came to such sudden halt that Rose felt her knees knock—in her frailty, her legs gave out from under her and she collapsed into the mucky floor.

Tom ushered something into her lap. It was warm, wet, sticky but it did not feel alive. Somehow, saliva built in her mouth and her empty stomach—withered now—gave a familiar ache.

"Eat," Tom instructed.

With an animalistic ferocity, Rose gnawed at the thing in her lap—it provided a syrupy overload of unaccustomed sustenance. The taste...She had no idea what it was...like strawberry sugar...she only wanted more and _more_ of it...

"Is your strength returning, Rose?"

Rose nodded, still chewing furiously, tears welling in eyes with desperate relief.

"What..." The question trailed as a gruesome possibility rose within her. There were no trees or plants surrounding them. There was nothing but carcasses and entrails... Was she eating—bile rose in her throat—could she have been eating—was this something _human?_ It didn't taste like blood or meat but—

 _What was this?_

Tom watched her with a reserved smile.

"How is your first taste of Magic, pet?"

X

X

X

Her brother had taken her to Egypt to practice her Rune-form. At least that was the excuse he gave for them to go off alone. Lily secretly anticipated other unspoken reasons were involved—but she was not one to refuse quality time with the elusive brother she'd been denied of in youth. In many ways, she did not know him at all. But like her, Albus was good-looking and self-absorbed; They'd become attached at the hip very quickly.

They sat side by side, thighs touching, in a tightly-crammed bus rolling across the city of Cairo. Lily gazed out the window in awe at the buildings, long hair flowing with the wind. Meanwhile Albus, behind sunglasses, was mechanically flicking his way through a historical text called _The Origins of Magical Civilization_. Speed-reading, he at last found what he was looking for and splayed it across his sister's lap with a wry grin.

"What's this." She gave an equally wry grin, in response to which he slunk an arm around her shoulders.

"It's what you'll be translating," he said.

"I can't make sense of this." She laughed, nestling her head against his shoulder as she studied the image in her lap. "It's so old and fragmented. "

"Well, it's only a photo," he murmured, pressing an absent kiss to the crown of her hair as he glanced out at the buildings. "We'll be searching for the real thing."

They arrived in the hotel room they were staying—same room, two twin beds—to unload their bags. Albus was busy setting and sorting his historical texts, for he had brought a great many, onto the table, while Lily was undressing behind the mostly-left-open bathroom door, changing into more slinky club attire.

"Let's go have fun while we're here." She shot her brother a mischievous grin.

To her disappointment, he did not even look up.

"We are visiting the pyramids early, Lily," came the curt response. "You need to rest."

"Oh, don't be such a spoilsport. We can have fun too." Lily glared. Her brother, ever the scholar, sat reading fixedly at the side of his bed. Ignoring her.

A pout etched along her freshly-painted lips.

"Fine then," she huffed. "I'll just go _myself_. And if I find a guy I probably won't come back here tonight—"

"No." He looked up; his eyes were sharp, cold, enraged. She had his full and undivided attention now. Lily'd known she would.

He grabbed his jacket and then he was annoyedly dragging behind her as she slinked along, through the hotel, through the many streets of Cairo, her hand tightly gripping at his.

The city looked beautiful under the speckle of stars. It wasn't long before they arrived at a grungy-looking casino, with astral lighting and suave Arabic music audible from the street. Standing outside, Lily slinked her fingers through her brother's black hair to properly muss him up for his— _their_ —adventurous night.

"You're going to score some _serious_ pussy tonight," she informed with a grin.

"Lily," he reprimanded.

"What." She pouted her lips in innocence.

"Just stay where I can see you."

While Lily danced and slinked seductively through throngs of bodies with drink in her hand, it did not take her brother long to find the hookah, and continue once more the life-long endeavor to pollute and ruin his lungs.

Sitting in the corner, a smoky, hazy atmosphere had formed around Albus.

"Come here." Her brother gestured.

Giggling, Lily made her way through the crowd and climbed into his lap, playfully slinking her head back, as he brought the hookah to her lips.

"Tastes like strawberry," she hicupped, lazily smacking her lips. "You try now."

He brought the pipe to his own lips and tried it. "Strawberry," he agreed.

"Your least favorite," she teased.

"It's too sweet for me. I like the bitter flavors."

As if suddenly bothered by her intense closeness, Albus shoved—gently—to move her off his lap. Lily sank into the adjacent cushioned seat, firmly planting her feet onto his lap instead, and gestured slyly with one raised brow over to the group of girls that has been oogling her handsome brother all night.

"Go fuck one of them," she urged.

Her brother took a long, irritated inhale off the smoky apparatus, ignoring the comment altogether.

"Why not?"

"Boring. Bored," came the dull reply.

"Sex is boring?" Lily laughed incredulously, folding one long leg over the other.

Albus' brow furrowed slightly as he took another smoky inhale; he did not like when she brought up dirty topics. He wanted to maintain the belief his sister was a virginal thirteen-year old who needed protection. A plucky young acolyte.

"I dare you," Lily purred, leaning in to whisper conspiratorially at his ear, whilst tucking a condom into his pocket, "to do something bad tonight."

His eyes flickered with a volatile energy—she recognized it. She had bestowed a challenge and now excitement had been created; He was too cocky to turn it down.

"Fine," he said sharply. "Pick one for me."

"Doesn't matter to me, Albus. Pick what you like."

"I don't like anything. Pick one."

"Fine...The redhead then."

Her brother gave her a weighted glare. Lily returned an impish smile that bespoke a feigned innocence.

Then he was up on his feet, making fast, arrogant strides. Lily counted the minutes. He spent fifteen in pointed conversation with the redhead, superficially doing all the right things, touching at her arm, playing with her hair. Staring at her face with that hovering, seductive—sociopathic—intensity. Afterwards he was leading the girl by the arm somewhere into the back—the bathrooms. Lily counted ten minutes until her brother finally emerged. His lips were chapped, his shirt was ruffled, unbuttoned at the top. His hair was ruffled like a million hands had been running through them.

"Done," he stated, with a smirk of triumph, handing her the empty wrapper, before returning to the hookah.

X

In the large echoing Death Chamber of the Department of Mysteries, kneazle after kneazle became sacrificed in Lorcan's endeavor to have _something_ survive going past the Veil.

The black, tattered curtain stood atop a stone dais raised from a sunken stone put. The room was cold and strange whispers echoed, cloyingly inviting.

As yet another Kneazle, injected with experimental potion, attached to a rope-apparatus, was hurtled through the brightly flickering, swirling colors of the curtain-As yet another kneazle _died_...Lorcan ran fingers over his eyebags in frustration, pacing around like a madman.

" _Gah!_ "

Hugo and Scorpius, sitting from the distance of observatory seats, observed on in alarmed horror.

"How many Kneazles are we going to kill?" Scorp muttered dejectedly.

"As many as it takes to bring back the Ressurectionist," the Unspeakable snapped with a wholesome determination unbefitting the gruesomeness of the situation.

"Also—Hugo, come _here_ , I need _more_ blood for my potion."

The young boy gave a finnicky groan, but scattered to his feet, folding his sleeve once more to be probed with a needle.

Scorpius too lifted to his feet to help discard broken containers, cleaning up after Lorcan's many, many messy experimental potions.

"So many failed trails," he grumbled under his breath, drawing empty glass into a waste basket. "Any idea what we're missing, Lorcan?"

The Unspeakable, forehead slumped exhaustedly against a work table now, glanced up with a dejected look.

"No clue."

X

 _Do you know anything about the origins of magic, Lily?_

 _Did you ever learn about Egyptian magical civilizations in school, Lily?_

 _What do you know about Ressurection, Lily?_

Her brother shot question after question, tersely pacing ahead like a man on a mission—where he got his energy so early in the morning, she had no clue. The two of them were trailing through sand along the Great Pyramids. The wind, dry and mucky, scattered sand across her skin, irritating her face. When she began to slow down, Albus gripped her hand and _hauled_ her along.

In truth, Lily was a bit hungover—she had _not_ told her brother for he would've been _pissed_ —and did not have the capacity for questions or Rune-work today. There was no way out of it though. Albus was sterner than any Professor she'd ever had and kept trying to teach her or inquire about what she knew; he wanted her to prove she was cleverer than she was; He was trying to mold her into a very specific type of brilliant witch.

With a sigh, Lily stared sideways in reverential awe at the stone statues with faces carved of ancient pharaohs and animals.

"These were their old gods, weren't they?" she murmured.

"Every civilization has its gods."

"We don't have gods," she argued.

"Magic _is_ our god, Lily."

Albus said this so matter-of-factly, it _bothered_ her. Her brother had deductions and assumptions about things with which there was no arguing. She wished that he would be more like her—relaxed and outgoing—but it was impossible to bend Albus. She kept trying to kick him but he hastily dodged all her slow movements.

"I'm _tired_ ," she moaned.

They'd been trailing along the pyramids, exploring the hundreds of broken nooks and sifts and crannies for _hours_.

"My legs hurt— _carry_ _me."_

"Are you still twelve, Lily?" came the snappish response.

"Does my body _look_ twelve?"

No response. He gave two very bothered blinks.

"Exactly." She smirked, watching him hurriedly pace ahead and curve the corner.

A few seconds later.

"C'mhere—I've found it," came the stern command.

A wave of relief must have fallen over Lily; They were this close to being done and going _home_. She quickly caught up to find Albus bent on his knees, excavating a stone tablet from the sand at the bed of the pyramid structure.

"Take out your journal—you will be translating it for me."

"Can't you just do it yourself?"

Albus stalked over to her.

"I want you to practice." He roughly set the tablet in her arms.

Nearly tumbling from the weight of it, Lily hastily sat down in the sand and procured her journal.

"Translate out loud," Albus instructed.

With a pouty glare at her bossy brother, Lily, nevertheless, abided. She began her translations.

"It's a a story...about a slave," she started, while scribbling down notes. "He was...a pariah—hated by the others...His mother...died."

Lily paused and looked up, confused.

"What's all this about?"

"Just keep going." Albus was pacing along the pyramid in deep thought. "What did he do when his mother died?"

"He..." Lily blinked at the symbols. "...tried to bring her back?"

She glanced up, once more awaiting an explanation as to what all this was about.

Albus looked as though this was something he expected to hear. He gave an impatient handwave, telling her to continue. "Did he succeed?"

"No... _yes_ —No..." Lily squinted at the carved lettering. "I can't make it out, sorry."

"It's fine. What happened next."

"The pharaoh found him...He was punished for attempting to do something so taboo...They..." Lily paused, bile rising in her throat. "It's pretty disturbing, Albus."

" _Read_ it."

"They drove nails through his ears to deafen him...they tore out his eyes to blind him...They broke the bones of his feet so he couldn't walk...They chopped his hands off with talons ..." Lily looked up. "They buried him alive..."

Albus stood still as ice now.

"And then what?"

"And then nothing. He died. That's the end," she said.

"He didn't," Albus corrected. "Something happened after. But _what_?"

She peered at the vague lettering at the very bottom of the tablet. It was so soft she could scarcely make it out.

"A few years later...their entire civilization was wiped out...that's all it says, I swear."

Her brother was as silent as death.

"Time to go back, Lily."

X


	43. Sin pt 2

**Author's Warning: This chapter contains mentions of rape themes. Nothing graphic. There will never be graphic sexual violence in Clash. **

**That said, this chapter is called 'Sin' so…you know we're still going to some evil places. Heh.**

X

 _Are you hungry Rose?_

Tom's voice. It was a whisper from somewhere deep in her ear; A seduction that slid with a licentious wetness through purulent canals and down an esophagus, slippery as centipedes in sugary syrup. The sweet molasses of the sensation coagulated with a desperate hunger, constricted by the velvet rawness of a swollen throat. It crystallized, compressed into something hard and round and smooth. Like a bolus.

 _I am._

The gelatinous mass of edible substance tumbled in her stomach. It ruptured. It burst, premature, like the skull of a child flung against the stone wall. There was an obscenity in the sugary slide of skin down her digestive tract. Magic became meat, grate from human fat in strips and ragged ribbons, in pared crimson curls—like the flesh of an apple separated from its pulp. A _squelch,_ a _crack_. Wet lips were stretched around more. There were corpses strewn across the vast dark dimension, remnants of the Creature's last meal; mere morsals of magic survived for her cannibalistic consumption—he was the predator, she became the vulture.

Tom had already set the plate.

 _Then eat, my pet._

 _Get stronger._

X

X

X

So who was the Creature, _really?_

[think, _think_ ]

Not a God. Not a Pharaoh. Not a ruler. Not a previous Dark Lord.

He had been…a _slave_.

More than that, he had been a _Ressurectionist_.

He had brought his mother back. Or attempted to do so. It didn't matter. He had made the effort and he had crossed into the realm of the Dead before his due time. Besides...his Rose Pose...the Creature had to be the _only one_ in the entire history of magic to cross into the realm of the Dead and _return_.

He then had been punished by the Pharaoh under whom he resided.

 _They drove nails through his ears to deafen him…They tore out his eyes to blind him…They broke the bones of his feet so he couldn't walk…They chopped his hands off with talons…They buried him alive._

His body had been **broken**.

But he hadn't died. He had—

[think, _think_ ]

Escaped?

[how?]

How did one escape from a buried sarcophagus?

X

"Albus, where are we going!" his sister's whiny voice called over the roar of thunder.

A storm in the desert was an odd thing. The water surge kicked up wet sand to block his path. Charging ahead, he squinted and saw the lighter, brighter softer hues of the day transposed against the seething tumult. Landmarks revealed themselves as they had been depicted in the map clasped in his fist. Through a hundred bodies and dirigibles of caskets and stone invisible to sand, he found the precise spot using his expert navigation skills.

The storm whipped him as he dug. The shovel was a boon but the earth was so loose—sand and sand and sand—that he did nearly as well with his magic. He dug. He burrowed, and then a flash of magic when he'd finally grown weary and impatient of physical exertion—hadn't taken longer than fifteen minutes.

A large blast of teeming spellfire wiped the entire area clean.

The Creature's coffin was a simple wooden box. Together he and his sister dragged the heavy box onto the surface and fell against the sides in exhaustion. The rain washed their fatigue. Lily looked at him expectantly. He nodded. She jammed the end of the shovel beneath the lid and then looked at him in surprise when it opened without a fight. Perhaps considering the man— _thing_ —that was meant to be inside, Albus felt an uncharacteristic surge of reluctance. His sister peeked at him again as if asking permission.

"Open it," he said, finally.

She pushed the lid partway aside. Even in the blackness it shone.

The mummified body—the Creature's _human_ body—was still there.

X

So what did this all _mean_?

He paced back and forth with manic, nearly-violent energy, cigarette in hand, trailing copious amounts of mud in his wake over the carpet that would likely get them kicked out of the hotel by morningtime. His sister sat atop her own bed, with her hair in curlers and her pouty mouth etched wide in annoyance, awaiting answers that weren't going to come.

"Alb—"

He raised a silencing hand. She huffed at the rudeness. He didn't care; His attention could not be diverted right now.

[ _think_ ]

The creature—when he was human—had not _died_ when they broke his body.

[what else?]

But he also hadn't escaped.

[which meant]

He had _evolved_.

"What's _wrong_ with you," his sister seethed at him. "I'm leaving. I'm going out. I'm getting drunk."

"Not now, Lily"

"But—"

" _Quiet_."

[break it down]

[simplify]

Okay, so:

The Creature's power. The reason why he was the way he was. The Creature's _hunger—_

It was all because he had crossed into the Realm of the Dead at one point. Because he had committed Ressurection.

[rationalize it]

Crossing into the Realm of the Dead had changed the mechanical structure of his body somehow. It made him _hunger_ for Death, especially for magical deaths.

 _A few years later...their entire civilization was wiped out._

In his hunger—or perhaps his _wrath_ —he had destroyed his entire civilization. Consumed them. Annihilated them. And now he intended to do the same again and again. He intended for history to repeat itself for that was the only way to sustain him. The repetition of genocide. The repetition of mass magical deaths.

[and Rose]

His Rose Pose had also been a Ressurectionist.

Did that mean she was the same way?

X

X

X

What was hatred?

Until now, Rose'd only known it in fragments.

 _Why don't you just eat me?_

The Creature's response had been a Cheshire leer. " _Oh, but I do eat you,"_ he'd corrected her with a velvet purr that failed to cloak his obvious contentment. Vermillion eyes had flickered through the heady haze of gloom—the only light remaining in this blackened abyss of the universe. _"Quite frequently._ "

What followed next was obscured by her memories, a protective shield from reliving the pain, until all that remained was…a haunting shadow of the faceless man—the unfolding of robes, the discarded scraps of cottons—talons holding her down, trailing pain down the length of her… _a shudder._ She couldn't recall how when or how long it all lasted...how many times it happened...she could barely even say the word…. _rape_.

It was not a word that came up often before, despite all the brutality her life had. For twenty one years, Rose had managed to avoid it—and now she felt…sullied…filthy…damaged in one of the worst ways one can damage a girl…In a physical sense, her body had been **_broken_** …She felt _anger_ beyond she had ever managed before.

 _This_ was hatred.

And Tom. He had saved her. She didn't understand _why_ —did not need to—because she was not one to question a good thing. Tom had rescued her, given her something to eat, helped her rebuild the muscle and fat she had lost, helped numb the pain of physical exploitation and memories of loss of her loved ones.

Where she was now was uncertain. But there was rain. Except it wasn't really rain. She had tasted it and it did not taste like water, it had a thicker, milkier consistency, with a coppery after-twinge. She could not see the color but it reminded her of blood.

The dimension reeked of death. The gloom of the abyss was endless.

Tom had helped scurry her within some malformed construction semblant of a cavern.

The temperature had dropped now. She wished for more clothing, but there was nothing there—all the carcasses were naked...and all she had was the slight potato-bag shaped rag with a scratchy consistency.

"Tom."

Her savior looked over with his customary smile. In the chilling darkness and gloom, his beauty was only heightened, perhaps to unnatural proportions— To her, he looked human and decent and pleasant, and she faintly wished he would scoot closer—he sat at such a distance in his gentlemanly manner.

"Yes?" he murmured, in a voice that was not-quite a purr, not-quite-a husk. It was melodious and handsome, like everything was about Tom. His eyes told a similar story, for something shiny glinted within their cage. "Are you feeling better, dearest?"

She gave an intent nod. "But it's cold," she shuddered.

"Would you like me to move over?" Tom quipped, in a very mild manner.

A nod.

"Would you like me to…hold you?"

A slower, softer nod.

"If you can handle my ugliness," her voice broke. She felt uncharacteristically small. She could've wept. She wasn't sure what compelled her to say something so pathetic...she felt sorely aware of how pitiful her appearance must've been…Everything about her felt _disgusting_. She felt so fragile. And still she wanted contact, some form of human touch that wasn't aggressive….It had been so _long_ …

She hardly needed to ask again, because Tom had moved and taken her in his arms. His fingers were cold where they rested against her back—he emanated no warmth. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, rubbing her arm in a perfunctory way. During all this, his body remained stiff, disaffected. Despite the superficiality of the hug, her stomach fluttered at the press of another body against hers. She sunk her face into his shoulder, appreciative of the simple gesture. It helped that he was handsome. His touch made her feel less ugly and bleak.

"Have you ever been raped, Tom?"

He remained quiet in thought. "No," came the curt response.

"Tom."

"Yes, pet."

"I want to _kill_ him," she seethed into his shoulder, tears building in her eyes now. Her body still burned from the Creature's brutality. Her insides—genitals—had been destroyed; It was more damage than magic could ever repair. She couldn't live this down—she couldn't move past this. This was _it_ for her.

"I want to kill the Creature and then I want someone to kill me."

He gave an unobtrusive nod into her shoulder. "Understood."

"Tom—if you help me get out of here, I'll bring you back."

"Will you?"

She nodded, kissing plaintively at his cold cheek. He gave no response but it didn't matter; At the current moment she trusted Tom more than anyone else in the world.

"But you have to help me kill the creature."

"We'll do just that, Rose, I guarantee it. As long as you keep eating as I instruct."

She nodded and then it was quiet.

Tom did not speak for a while again—he was deep in some calculative thought. She wished he would talk. How pleasant his voice was. She wanted to hear him say soothing things. She wanted him to call her Rose Pose. She wanted to hear something, _anything_ …How the quiet bothered her.

X

X

X

While Albus had been consumed in his thoughts, his little sister had vanished from sight. Furious, he stalked through the darkly lit streets of the foreign city until he at last found her standing outside some club in the middle of a pair of flirtatious boys chatting animatedly; Boys were always flocking to Lily when she went out. His sister so very much loved attention.

"Lily!" he called, trying to get her attention.

To his dismay, she stuck out a finger and continued ignoring him. One of the bloke's hands was on her bum while the other kept touching at her waist—Why was she _like_ this?

Feeling Impatient and wholly murderous, Albus stormed over.

"Albus," she said, warning in her tone at seeing him approach. "Go away."

Ignoring this, he grabbed her arm and yanked her away.

"Why did you leave without telling me?" he snapped, spinning around when they were alone in the alleyway.

"I did tell you—you kept _ignoring_ me."

"And this is what you do when I ignore you?" he seethed. "We're in a foreign city. You can't just wander off—You're _little_."

"I'm nineteen." She folded her arms in retaliation. "Also, I spent all day with you doing what _you_ wanted to do, and yet you can't give me the time of day?"

His eyes flickered in confusion. Was she drunk? What was she on about? He was always giving her the time of day. And why was _his_ attention necessary? What did that have to do with...

Annoyed by the stupid prattling, he threw her like a doll over his shoulder, ignoring her protests, and apparated them back to the hotel room. He dropped her on her bed and then hexed a pillow at her face.

"You jerk," she huffed, extending up her arm. "Look at what you did. I got splinched."

"Let me see," he murmured, grabbing her finger and and inspecting the wound as if she were a child. "It's so small. It's inconsequential, Lily."

"Kiss it better," she demanded, sitting up.

Albus, amused eyes on his little sister, gave it a quick, little peck. "Better?"

She nodded contentedly.

"There's one on my cheek too." She pointed it out to him. Rolling his eyes, he leant in and gave the cheek a quick peck as well.

Lily's eyes were dancing now.

"There's a bruise on my knee too."

His eyes, a bit unsettled, watched his sister's eyes, searching for something.

"That so?" he said hesitantly.

She nodded with fervent insistence.

Then he was down on one knee, to give a quick peck to the bruised kneecap.

Her thighs parted.

"There's a bruise in between too," his sister whispered, openly sultry now. "It's throbbing...Kiss it better."

A sinking, repulsive feeling dawned within him.

His expression hardened.

The cold fingers of his prosthetic wrapped her thighs, forcibly and roughly clamping them together.

"You're a bad girl," he snapped, glaring up at her face.

An impish grin crossed her lips. "Can't take what you dish out, can you?"

"What—"

" _You're_ the one who gets jealous. _You're_ the one kissing at _my_ leg."

Shame burned deep in his stomach.

Lily, to his further horror, tilted her face down languidly. She was watching him now, with openly flirtatious eyes, for the veneer of innocence was gone. And she was right. _He_ had crossed the line. She had drawn the boggart out, for she'd somehow known it existed. And now she had him right where she wanted him—on his knees.

"These are bad games to play," he informed his sister, annoyed.

"Then don't play, Albus. No one is _making_ you," came the flippant response.

But a smirk had curved along her lips in challenge. She had his mouth, his lips, his ego—It was _his_ smirk. Only on her, it was absolutely _feral_.

"Why are you so scared when I'm not?" she coaxed, slinking an affectionate hand through his tousled hair. "If you want something just ask—it's _fun_."

Her thighs shifted, attempting to part once more in offering. Albus held them firmly closed.

Shifting away, he released an aggrieved sigh and rose to face her again.

"Who said I'm scared?" he answered with a smirk of his own.

Lily grinned.

"Good boy," she purred, leaning in to kiss him.

Albus chuckled at the absurdity of these words. "Silly Lily," he muttered back. Though he didn't kiss her back— _couldn't_ kiss her back—his hands gripped at her shoulders to hold her steady.

He allowed a few seconds for her to do as she pleased before—gently—tugging her off.

"Why not," she demanded, outraged at being denied more.

"Lily," he murmured, his eyes flickering humorously across his sister's face. "C'mon."

Her face contorted with hurt.

"I _hate_ you," she seethed at him, fists tight.

This did not deter Albus, who just shrugged. "I'm your brother." Hate came with the territory.

"That's not good enough," she snapped, furious now—his sister, endearingly enough, had his temper. "How do I know you won't just leave me one day? How are you any different from Dad?"

He stared unblinkingly, feeling so very out of his element in this conversation.

His mental faculties strained to unpack the emotion sprouting from his sister's mouth—this was beyond his realm of comprehension. Lily's words teemed with pain. This was their father's fault. At the most fundamental level, _everything_ was his father's fault. He had created all the boggarts. His sister had one too.

"Tell me how to fix, Lily," he said, affectionately folding a strand of hair behind her ear.

She scoffed, moving away from him on the bed to light a cigarette. She hugged at her bare legs and gave a pained, bitter laugh. "You can't. You're just like Dad. You're both magic-obsessed arseholes... You both keep _leaving_."

Green eyes remained etched in miserable focus, trying to find a solution to this complex paradigm he had been handed.

"I'm present," he said, taking her hand in his and squeezing it in assurance. "Whatever you need."

"Then don't feed me bullshit." She regarded him with cold, hurt eyes, before taking an angry drag. "If you care about me then _prove_ it."

His jaw clenched.

He leant in and took his sister's face and pressed his own to kiss her deeply, angrily. She gripped the hair at the back of his head and fiercely yanked him in. She tasted, like him, of smoke and bitterness. It disgusted him but he did not want to hurt his sister.

"Happy yet," he murmured into her mouth. She shook his head.

"More," she demanded, her small hands nipping at his belt.

"Lily—"

"I _want_ it."

He gripped her hands and yanked them to her sides, glaring coldly. Her lips etched to a pout. She was not used to being told 'No'. She was used to taking what she wanted. Albus, who had nearly become the Dark Lord, was also used to taking what he wanted. But in this moment, those two things happened to be _very_ different.

His sister stood up and made a show of storming into the bathroom. Moments later he heard the roar of water against bath-tiles but it was not enough to drown out the sounds of her cries.

His sister was sobbing pitifully in the shower.

Albus scooted back onto his twin bed, folding his hands across his chest, and stared blearily at the ceiling in existential crisis. What was a brother? Surely, this wasn't a philosophical question. How could anyone be as terrible at being a brother as he was? Why had his sister tried to seduce him? The universe seemed determined to send him to hell. God was dead, hell didn't exist, and still Albus was certain he was going to hell.

Hopefully Tom Riddle would save him a seat.

He shifted off his shoes, absently flicked through channels on the telly, waiting for the dreadful sobbing to die down.

At last his sister came out, shivering but fully dressed.

"Done moping?" He glanced at her, tossing over her hairbrush.

She glowered wretchedly, still tears in eyes, and turned away to yank the knots out of her wet hair with a nearly-violent fury.

"Lily, stop that," he chided.

She ignored him.

"Want to practice Runes?" he tried again.

She shook her head at him through the mirror. Then she was haphazardly tossing things in her bags. She was leaving. She was punishing him. His stomach twisted in knots—He felt like a child about to be abandoned by his mother.

"Lily..." He tried weakly.

"I never want to see you again," she hissed at him. "I _hate_ you."

Albus stared anxiously at his sister's quickly departing visage.

He didn't know how to handle this. He'd gotten too dependent—He often didn't _eat_ unless Lily was there. He did _not_ want to lose his sister. How did other people—

The door slammed and his shoulders trembled, eyes clenching tight in unexpected pain. Anger surged and then he was on his feet. A hex flew out his arm destroying the telly and another one at the mirror, shattering incandescent pieces everywhere. One flew at him and he grabbed it and cut a deep wound across his cheek.

Breathing heavily, he sunk to the ground against the door, lighting a cigarette, blood dribbling down his face. Something pounded against the roof—rain, stormwater. He was reminded of how much he hated storms. Anguish melted and fury returned and then he was seething, he wanted to _kill_ —

This was all _his father's_ fault.

X

X

X

The International Confederation of Wizards met at a conference room in Switzerland, a grand building atop a scenic mountain. It was another typical day. The agenda for the meeting was—once more—figuring out what to do about the Chinese Dark Lord. The floor, at the moment, was held by British ambassador and well-known public figure Harry Potter. Wizards clamored left and right as he presented ideas to dismantle the foreign—

At once, the large wooden doors burst open and a dark-robed wizard entered, a prosthetic arm raised in threat.

Harry, halting mid-speech, raised a brow.

"Albus what are you—"

A fierce blue hex shot across the room, blasting Harry Potter back, hurtling him through the open air, crashing him against the wall from where he tumbled to the ground, eventually landing on his arse with a pained groan.

The seated ICW wizards rose, and quickly—or rather tediously slowly, they were _old_ —moved out of the way as Albus strode across the elegant halls with all the frightening and authoritative prowess befitting any cruel tyrant. His dark robes even billowed menacingly behind him.

"Hello son," Harry grunted, slowly rising to his feet again. "It's a nice day. What brings you—"

"Lily," Albus snapped, lunging forward and hurling another violently flashing hex from fingertips to injure his father.

"What's the matter with Lily?" Harry was quick to deflect this one with an, albeit, exasperated shield. The blue rebounded and tore through the massively hanging chandelier, causing a gargantuan crash which sent ICW members scurrying for a safe hiding spot once more.

Albus' brow twisted in frustration.

"I don't know," he admitted, miserably. "I don't _understand_ —" his eyes became cold and sharp, and he pointed his prosthetic at the man. "Fix my sister. Go home and make her better."

Harry stared in dismay at his threatening son, and then gazed around at the conference room, at the ICW members cowering behind the tables and chairs that his son had tarnished amid his temper tantrum. This, _this_ , was the boy who'd nearly become the Dark Lord.

What a world that would've been.

"He's my son," Harry wearily assured the approaching guards, all whom were cautiously coming from all angles at Albus, though his son didn't seem a bit threatened or bothered by the prospect of arrest. "It's all right—Albus, _please_ put your arm down. You're creating widespread panic."

His son, still glowering, slowly lowered his arm.

Harry drew a weary sigh, drawing off his glasses for a moment and rubbing at the space between his eyes. The many perks of raising a near-Dark Lord.

"Okay now...Tell me, what's happened with Lily?"

The boy stared stonily at the ground, brow furrowed in thought as he contemplated a a suitable answer. He then glanced up, enraged once more.

"You need to tell her you won't leave her again," Albus said abruptly. "And you need to _mean_ it."

"What—"

Albus raised his arm in threat again.

"Say you'll do it," he commanded his father. "You'll make my sister better. You'll fix her. _Swear_ it."

Staring in perplexed dismay, Harry blinked.

He then gave a sheepish nod.

X

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X

Breaking Prophet Headlines:

 _Albus Potter Disrupts ICW Conference_

 _Albus Potter Charged With Thousands of Galleons Worth of Property Damage_

 _Father-Son Dispute Reaches International Proportions_

X

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X

"Sodding hell," the blond murmured, flicking through the papers, the pair of them sitting across from each other at a gloomy diner at the infernal hour. It was not their usual ritual to be out so late at night, but Scorpius had just been dumped by his most recent girlfriend and Potter had just made international news for his sociopathic criminal behavior...It was a horrible, horrible week.

More importantly, Potter hadn't eaten all day and so it was necessary to prod him with company. It hadn't worked. The plate remained full with small bites taken out of the Shepard's pie—he had, once more, begun to lack incentive.

Potter's brow was tense. He was now staring into the depths of his coffee, lost in dark, contemplative thought.

"I should move to China," he murmured after a few minutes.

Scorpius glanced up with a confounded look.

"You can't just run off to kill dark lords whenever things get _hard_ ," he reprimanded sternly.

Potter maintained the hollow inspection of his coffee. Scorpius knew he had been writing his sister Lily all week but the younger sibling was no longer speaking with him. Potter had visited her flat and she had not opened the door. He had attempted to hex it down but his sister had threatened to call the cops. Potter then, in standard arsehole fashion, had threatened to kill the cops and so his sister threatened to call their father—the consequence of which would possibly mean his father would no longer train him, which was of the utmost priority to Potter. So finally Potter discovered the good sense to back off.

Potter's eyes were now flitting along his sharp cutlery with some longing.

"I could do it though," he reaffirmed. "Kill the Chinese dark Lord. He's fairly new. Won't even take me long."

" _No_." Scorpius returned an adamant look. But his friend remained lost in romantic, murderous dreams, and so Scorpius slouched back, perhaps wishing he was elsewhere getting laid tonight. He drew a large, bored swig from his beer bottle, and gave a sigh. "And anyway, your dad would never let you."

"My father is _not_ my keeper," shot a cutting voice.

"My father is mine," Scorpius reminisced, staring out the window a bit pathetically.

"I'm well aware your father runs your life, Malfoy."

An annoyed glare was shot, but in a matter of seconds the petty jibe was forgotten. There were less petty things to focus on. To call a truce, he leant forward and pulled out his wand to light a small flicker of flame. Potter leant in with his cigarette and took to the flame.

"Wanna see something cool?" Scorpius finally said.

Potter exhaled smoke as he gave a nod—albeit a disinterested one.

Scorpius reached into this jacket pocket and retrieved a set of schematics—specifically the schematics of the potion Lorcan Scamander was devising to help them cross the Veil.

He, then, uncrumpled the set of papers and slid them across the table at his best mate.

Potter's eyes glazed over these designs, quietly assessing. Given his friend's most recent travels, Scorpius had had a feeling that he'd been up to something on his own end as well.

"So what do you reckon?"

Potter's face did not reveal intent, but Scorpius knew the mental faculties were at work, breaking apart the potion, the plan to cross the Veil, and ultimately their chances of successfully bringing Rose back.

"It's suicide," he determined, after ten minutes.

"Why?" Scorpius snapped.

Potter did not answer immediately.

"Has Hugo told you of the Creature?"

"He's told me just about everything, mate."

Hugo, the chatterbox he was, had done a great job dispelling all the information that needed to be dispelled between him, Potter, and that loony fellow Lorcan Scamander. (Hugo had explained that all three of them were Rose's _hoes)._

Potter gave a disaffected nod at his knowing about the Creature—he didn't particularly care. Unlike his father, who was intent on keeping the Creature a secret from the world, for fear of starting mass panic—Potter didn't really _care_. He had no personal investment in the world, even if he may have incidentally saved it from the Dark Lord. But Scorpius was privy to the fact that Potter, much like himself, had a personal investment in _Rose_.

"It's a dead end, Malfoy. The Creature is on the Other Side…Even if Rose is alive, he'll be waiting. We can't beat him."

Scorpius frowned.

"What about…" What was that other thing Hugo mentioned? "...the Stone? Can't it be used to fend him off?"

Potter's eyes etched in uncharacteristic panic.

"We can't take that across the Veil," he snapped.

"Why not?"

"It's too risky…the Creature could devour it."

Hopelessless began to set in. Scorpus stared at his mate in fearful misery. Risking their lives was one thing, but risking all of magic to save Rose?

"And…" Potter spoke again, then trailed off with a sigh.

"And?" Scorpius echoed faintly in question.

Potter was quiet, dejected almost. He leant in, placing his arms on the table, his expression half-mutilated in the gloom of the diner.

"She's like the Creature," he said hoarsely.

"Pardon?"

"Rose is _like_ the _Creature_ ," Potter gritted out, staring at him darkly, coldly now. "She's a …younger version still. But she can eat magic. She could eat the Stone… She could wipe us all out."

Scorpius stared, stunned. Bringing Rose back had the potential to endanger the world?

In mere seconds the situation had changed entirely.

Something dark—a poignant fear—curdled within Scorpius. Ever so slowly, miserably, he reached his hand across the table and began to withdraw the potion schematics. They were better off just ripping them up. But a hand snapped down just as he clasped them—Potter kept the notes firmly in place.

"What?" Scorpius barked, outraged now.

Potter drew a deep breath. He squeezed his eyes painfully. When he spoke again, his voice was shaking:

"Give me some time to learn the Stone from my father and I'll—"

"Potter!" Scorpius snapped. "Look, _no_ , you _just_ said—"

"I know what I said," came a harsh snap in turn.

Scorpius blinked, and began to slowly recede his hand. He glared bleakly at the boy.

"So...like, we just keep her away from the Stone forever? And hope she doesn't eat anyone?"

"Yes," Potter agreed.

"And we're still bringing her back?"

"Yes."

X

 **AN:** **Lemme know if you guys ship Lord Voldemort/cannibal!Rose, Albus/murder, or Scorpius/that one unnamed girl that dumped him. lol.**

 **Reviews keep the updates coming ;)**


	44. Assemble pt 1

**To Mia who asked for a summary of all the magic/creature/Stone stuff:** **I have a conversation in one of these beginning scenes between two characters to help explain it all. I hope it covers everything concisely. Sorry if things got a bit convoluted. Let me know after if there's anything that is still confusing!**

X

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X

 _Lily,_

 _I've attached a set of texts that I hope you will read when you get the time—don't stop practicing Runes. I've marked all the essential chapters and I've already highlighted the information that is most important for you to learn. I've also taken the liberty of devising a study table that you'll have no problem following on your own if you no longer want to see me. Don't rip it up because it took me a lot of time_.

 _Also, I'm sorry._

 _I do hope one day you forgive me._

 _I still want to be your brother. I want to do it proper. I'm trying to understand what being a good brother means. It is something I have tried to be for a long time, and still the truth evades me; I'm now certain that I have a mental illness; I call it a boggart because it frightens me. It is something I witnessed in a graveyard once. It makes me act in ways of which I am ashamed. I have been reading philosophy on the subject of family; Antioch has been an enlightening influence. I have also been consulting medical textbooks; I wish there was a pill to make the boggart go away. Perhaps someday I will create a potion. I feel shame for what happened. I want to fix it. I cannot seem to eat. I think sometimes it is difficult for my mind to..._

 _Doesn't matter. I'll sort it out. Please don't hate me forever._

 _Your stupid, stupid brother,_

 _Al_

 _P.s. Yesterday I had strawberry ice cream and thought of you. It was still disgusting though. Too sweet._

X

 _Albus,_

 _I don't hate you, you jerk. Of course we're still family. I'm sorry too._

 _No more shame. Let's not let the boggart win. Yours or mine._

 _Want to get ice cream later?_

 ** _Love,_**

 _Lily_

X

 _Lily,_

 _Yes. Not strawberry though._

 ** _Love,_**

 _Al_

X

X

X

What was a brother?

She was finally beginning to understand.

Several weeks would pass before Lily struck up the nerve to face her middle sibling again. She was now in therapy, which was helping; She had suggested Albus do the same but her brother had too many walls, too many barriers, and did not trust anyone to poke around in his head; He said he had granted her too much leeway simply for knowing about the boggart. Lily had also been speaking with their father as well, whose childhood absence, as her brother had suspected, was the root of all the boggarts.

Blue waves crashed like roaring battalions along the harbor. She stared out at the boats and the gulls that filled the air with beating wings and cries. The ocean brought life, movement and a place to rest her eyes away from the stresses of life. Albus sat across from her on the tiny table—they were outside a Fish n Chips location— eating in silence and occasionally making eye contact. It was important to take him to eat on their many outings because otherwise he did not eat at all.

"Which one was your favorite?" he mumbled after several minutes of awkward quiet, finally inquiring of the many books he had sent her.

"The third volume," Lily said, smiling sheepishly. "Mastery of the Runic Design ...It was the most interesting."

"I like that one too." Her brother gave a curt nod.

"I'm thinking of applying for a translator position with the Ministry."

"That's...brilliant, Lily."

With a prideful glow, she beamed up at him. "What are you working on these days—Better not be defiling any more ancient graves," she joked, watching the corner of his mouth lift in wry humor.

"That was only once," he murmured, holding and inspecting a chip before eating it.

"You never did tell me what that was all about."

Her brother hesitated, adjusting to this shift of conversation. He existed in a strange internal world, Lily had noted. It must've taken him a moment to realize that not everyone functioned at the same pace or were familiar with the same details he was.

"There's a man in the world that's not a man," he began. "He's ancient. He's...a creature that's transcended the human form. He doesn't have a body like yours or mine." Albus extended out his non-prosthetic hand—the one with his real skin—as if to contrast the statement. "...That's whose human body we dug up."

Lily stared, mouth wide in a perfect O. Her brother waited, boredly nipping away at his chips, until she had fully processed this information.

"How's that possible," she said softly, fearfully.

"He crossed the barriers between life and death a long time ago—it gave him the ability to do so again. At the current moment he exists in the space between the two realms. The In Between Space. That is how he evades detection."

"Crossed barriers of Life and..." She blinked, something occurring to her. "You mean like Rosie did for Hugo?"

Her brother was quiet.

"Exactly like that, yes," he murmured, staring into the depths of his soft drink.

Fear crawled over her bones. "Is this creature dangerous?"

Albus hesitated once more before answering.

"Yes," he said curtly.

"Albus—does dad know?" Lily asked, leaning in to frantically shake his shoulder.

Rolling his eyes, her brother shoved the intrusive hand off.

"He knows everything," he grumbled. "He's the one keeping the Creature out of England right now."

"What? How?"

Her brother drew a deep, exasperated breath, about to go into explanation in his professor-like manner.

"There's a Stone that exists. Dad has it. It is a harness for magic. It's the _source_ of all magic. Our magic exists because the Stone exists. Powerful things can be done with it—such as creating a shield to keep the Creature away."

Lily peered up at the sky, searching for this apparent shield. She saw nothing but clear blue. Was it invisible?

"What happens if the Creature gets in?"

Her brother became quiet again. He leant on the table, fingers steepled to rest his chin, deep in predictive thought. "Well," he began. "Two options—one, we may have another dark lord—or two, he may just kill us all. Specifically, though, he wants the Stone."

"What's happens if he gets the Stone," Lily said, frantic now.

"He eats it and we lose magic forever," her brother responded in his usual blunt, objective tone, peeling the battered skin of his fish with a knife now. He sneered at it in disgust, before flinging it to the side of his tray.

Meanwhile, Lily was taking frantic, shallow breaths, trying to cope with this horrifying information she had just learned.

"Deep breaths," Albus murmured in instruction, wary eyes observing her as he drew cola from a straw.

Lily then began taking frantic, _deep_ breaths, before immediately bursting with more questions:

"Why does he want to eat it? Can't he eat something else? Fish and chips perhaps?"

Her brother snorted.

"He survives off the consumption of magic, the consumption of death. For centuries he's created mass magical deaths—created dark lords who would help cause them—to survive. The Stone is a harness...a compact form of all magic... Eating it would sustain him indefinitely," he muttered in one dark breath.

"And what happens to us if he _does_?"

Albus sent a sharp look.

"He won't."

"But if he _does_ ," Lily insisted with the obnoxious, childish tenacity of a twelve-year old Hugo. "Do we die? Does everyone die? Does everyone explode?"

"I don't know."

"Do we become muggles?"

"I don't _know._ "

Her throat gave a hard, emotional swallow. Her face had gone red. "It's a good thing for dad then, isn't it?" she said faintly. "Keeping us all safe."

Her brother offered nothing in agreement. She found herself watching his stoic, all-too-calm demeanor for something.

It clicked.

"What the hell are you up to, Albus? And _how_ dangerous?" she demanded, gripping the ends of the table and leaning in.

His shoulders stiffened at her harsh, confrontative tone. Releasing a sigh, he floated his carryout tray of peeled, fish-batter skins into the nearby trash with an arrogant wave of the hand. Luckily, no muggles were around to see this blatant display of magic.

"Very," he answered stiffly. "I'm working on some experimental designs for a potion..."

"Of course you are." Lily gave a breathless, frightened, chuckle. "You want to tell me what it does?"

"Well." Albus leant in, sly now, lowering his voice to a darker, slightly menacing tenor. "First you must swear not to tell anyone—not your little boyfriend and certainly not Dad."

She made a gesture to zip up her lips and throw away the key.

"I'm going to need something a bit more concrete, Lily."

"You mean..." Her eyes widened, thinking of the Unbreakable Vow.

But her brother merely—covertly—extended out his pinky.

Lily stared.

A sputtering laugh burst from her mouth.

With an eyeroll, she wrapped the finger with her own and shook it with as much mock-sneakiness. Albus gave a pleased smirk; Apparently, there was nothing more sacred and binding between siblings than a pinky-promise.

"All right, now tell me."

"I'm working on a potion to help me cross to the Other Side..."

X

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X

The nightmares were getting worse.

Scorpius watched the deep flames of the enraged fire through blurry eyes. He couldn't breathe, nor could he hear even the simplicity of his heart racing in his chest. He continued to choke and splutter under some thick sack, his struggle ceasing. The smoke smelt of kerosene, and had the strange scent of feminine perfume through it. Something female was abound. His mouth gaped in a scream as something _—someone—_ ate his flesh, licking greedily at his skin, but no sound left his mouth. Each lick was harsher, more painful—leaving a greater black burn each time. He could feel it pull his magic away, his very _life_ —

Waking with a gasp, Scorpius shot upright. Panting calmed to even breaths as he rubbed consolingly at his chest.

This was his _fifth_ nightmare about being _eaten alive_.

"Where are you going?" His girlfriend murmured blearily.

"Potter's," he murmured, lifting off the bed, yanking on his trousers, and apparating without a backwards glance.

He landed in a tiny, dingy one bedroom flat in an isolated part of the city. The space was small, cramped, and contained very little furniture or amenities; It was a shoe-box at best. Potter was not a decorative person. Blaring police sirens and barking dogs echoed from outside. Having finally been discharged from the hospital, his best mate had somehow found the shittiest place in all of London to buy for himself. His sister, who he was talking to again, had apparently helped him pick it out; Shit taste ran in the family.

Potter too was awake this very night. Scorpius had known he wouldn't be able to sleep. Sleeves rolled to forearm, the boy was sat at his shitty wooden desk by lamplight, quill in hand, making notes and doing calculations with fervent attention. He paid no attention to Scorpius' sudden presence.

Shoulders slumping, Scorpius strolled to the kitchen to help himself to whatever was there. Yanking open the fridge-door, he found...

Nothing.

"Great," he muttered.

Annoyed, he flung open the cupboards in his quest for edibles. All that was present were pouches of tea and coffee. And pockets of white powder Potter had no doubt illegally procured from muggle drug dealers. All of Potter's primary sustenance in one location. No one, evidently, had taught him groceries. No one had taught Scorpius groceries either but at least he had an assembly of elves to wait on him hand and foot. He would have to get Potter an elf. Or a mother. Or a girlfriend. Someone to make sure he didn't starve.

Rubbing a weary eye, Scorpius set a pot of coffee and jiggled about, waiting for it to finish. Pouring two cups, he put one at his friend's tableside as he trailed back into the room, before collapsing onto the nearby sofa.

"So how's the potion design going?" he yawned.

Potter didn't respond. Or look up.

"Why are you here?" came the drone.

Eyelid drooping, Scorpius lifted one shoulder in a tired shrug.

"Bored," he answered. "And nightmares."

Potter gave a hollow nod.

"How's the pastime?" he said dryly.

"Hogging all the bedsheets," Scorpius grumbled, pulling a bottle out of his own bag and pouring himself some whiskey to go along with his coffee in the same mug. Would it ruin the flavor? Probably. But getting drunk was a priority. Folding arms across his torso, he then threw off his shirt—it was stupidly hot in Potter's stupid flat—and stripped down to his boxers. "She's a fucking snorer. Will probably be gone by the morning, Mum'll rush her out—anyway, I'm sleeping on your couch."

Potter gave a disinterested handwave without looking up from his papers.

A few seconds later, a red headed girl—Lily—apparated into the flat and Scorpius hastily made to shove his trousers back on. He watched as Lily pranced over to hand her brother a set of papers.

"Lily is helping with research for the potion," Potter droned in explanation, once more without looking up.

Scorpius raised his brows. "How come _I'm_ not helping with research?"

"Because you're shit at it," Potter informed coldly, taking no bother to observe the offended look crossing Scorpius' face.

Lily gave a giggle.

"Oi Lily, shouldn't you be asleep right now?" Scorpius jibed, feeling energized by the presence of a pretty girl in the room. "Way past your bedtime, little one."

"Shouldn't _you_ be asleep right now?" Lily shot back.

Scorpius blinked. "Touché."

"Get off my brother's sofa, Malfoy. That's where _I_ crash."

Scorpius stared at the authoritativeness of the girl, then glanced over at his best mate with a faux-betrayed look. "What? You've given the little one _my_ sofa?" Scorpius did, nevertheless, lift and move to the adjacent couch so Lily could sit there.

"What else have you given her that's _mine_ , you traitor?" Scorpius mustered his most hurt, withering look at Potter, mostly for the amusement of the girl in the room. "Do I mean so fucking little? After all we've been through—"

"Find a way to share or get out," Potter snapped harshly. Occupied in his thoughts, he did not have patience for frivolous banter tonight.

Scorpius flushed slightly at the prospect of sharing the sofa with Potter's pretty sister, but the girl did not seem to notice.

"Actually, I'm heading back," she commented, ruffling her brother's hair in a quick good-bye. "Can't leave my boyfriend all alone for the night, can I?"

"Sure you can, I left my girlfriend." Scorpius grinned haughtily.

Lily shot an exasperated look at her brother. "Wow, your mate's a self-absorbed prick _too._ "

"Oi!"

Potter gave a bored, dismissive wave, eyes still glued to his papers. "Have a good night, Lily."

With a roll of eyes, the girl disappeared in a flash.

Scorpius sat up then, utterly confused.

"Potter—your sister said she's got a boyfriend. Aren't you gonna go kill him?"

"No," came a droning voice. "I've taught her all the offensive magic she needs to do it herself."

Scorpius gaped.

This character development on his best mate's part was, frankly, unsettling. Scorpius felt vaguely offended at it. Why had Potter suddenly become less murderous? Was he becoming less sociopathic or simply passing on the trait to his sister? Where was this appreciation or understanding of boundaries in their younger years? So many questions bombarded Scorpius but he decided to swallow them and hastily search for a segue-way out of the topic.

"So." He cleared his throat. "Do you really think what we're doing ..."

 _…won't horribly backfire?_

That was his question. For Scorpius was now having second thoughts about saving Rose altogether. If she was dangerous like the Creature as Potter had said—weren't they, very explicitly, putting the wizarding world in danger?

The quill halted its mechanical movements. Potter had, at last, stopped working.

Scorpius anxiously searched the boy's face for similar reservations.

Standing, Potter strode over to his armchair with his mug. He took his sweet time to sink down and sip at his coffee, inflicting a long, deliberately-unnerving stare onto Scorpius.

Feeling restless from this scrutiny, Scorpius downed his coffee-whiskey concoction in one go and hissed in pain; It burned going down his throat. Potter maintained the inspecting stare, snuffing out all of Scorpius' fears with those sharp eyes.

His stomach, queasy, gave an unpleasant lurch.

Truthfully the nightmares were only getting worse. And Scorpius wanted details, schematics, things he could analyze and with which he could plan for their upcoming descent-into-literal-hell. He'd already begun to assemble their travel bag, gather the appropriate healing materials and a bevy of explosives. He had also begun the construction of an interdimensional Portkey, although he wasn't sure if it would work—He would have to refer Scamander on that, since the Unspeakable knew the properties of the Veil the best. He also needed to introduce Potter to the Unspeakable—another pending task and source of tension at the moment... Scorpius would be crossing the Veil, the dangerous boundaries of Life and Death, along with Potter. This would be their most life-threatening adventure _yet_.

"So what's the Other Side Like?"

"You're asking as if I know, Malfoy."

"Don't you?"

Potter scowled, sipping his coffee again. The answer was _no_.

"Have you ever seen Rose _eat_ anyone?" Scorpius said, lowering his voice.

Potter stared unblinkingly.

"Have _you_?" he snapped back.

Scorpius, slightly flustered by the sexual implications of what he'd said, shook his head with fervor. He grabbed a throw blanket and pulled it over his shoulders in comfort.

"So maybe she doesn't have the Creature's hunger," he said hopefully.

"Maybe," Potter echoed, rubbing wearily at one eye.

"Reckon she'd eat us if we pissed her off enough? Like if I made fun of her hair or something?"

A hoarse laugh came from Potter. He slumped backwards on his armchair, folding his hands over his chest, to stare bleakly at the ceiling. "This is a bad conversation to have," he murmured.

"We've got to have it though, haven't we," Scorpius said seriously, sitting up in firm attention. He was energized yet drunk; terrible combination. "Maybe not in front of Hugo but...Like—what are the chances she fucking _eats_ our magic down the road."

"I don't think Rose would ever eat _us_ , Malfoy."

"I don't think she'd eat _Hugo_. I..." Scorpius trailed off; In truth he thought Potter and him were valid for consumption. Shaking away the belligerent thought, he tried another approach. "Look, you know I adore your cousin, right Potter? I think she's bloody amazing. Terrifying but still somehow cute."

To his—unsettling—surprise, Potter once more gave no hostile reaction. No sociopathic anger. He just wearily nodded in agreement.

Ignoring the fact that Potter—also—thought his cousin was cute, Scorpius drew a careful breath and continued:

"I ...just...don't want to do something that fucks our world up, you get me?"

"Of course."

"That's a reasonable concern, right?"

"Very reasonable," Potter echoed hollowly, eyes fluttering against the bleak intensity of the single bulb in the room.

Scorpius leant in.

"So what do you reckon, then?"

A pained laugh. "If you're looking for a moral justification for the Pandora's box we're about to open, you've come to the wrong person, Malfoy."

Scorpius returned a steady stare.

"I just want you to say something clever and rational right about now," he said— _pleaded_.

To his disappointment, Potter said nothing at all. All he gave in response was a tired shrug.

X

X

X

Anatomical reactions were volatile—and when it came to masculine anatomy, the inspiration for arousal could be simple or complex—When it came to his Rose Pose, factors from both fields were at work. Under the pressure of injury and grief, childlike emotions had grown into adult desires.

There was a time where they could endure constant physical contact—and Albus never felt the tiny sting of excitement, he simply felt close to Rose, annoyed by her silliness...and now—something as small as remembering her say 'I love you' became a complex experience.

Arousal was a freight train—lurid imagery manifested, further and further into the chasm of fantasy that he'd never before endured. He envisioned her grinding her hips atop him, shuddering a moan into his ear when she finally caved to the friction of him inside her—he imagined her large brown eyes, staring him in deeply as they moved together. He still remembered, with little doubt, what she had tasted like—how her tongue had felt brushing across his in the handful of kisses she'd managed to inflict. He wished that he'd let her inflict more. That the hugs had lasted longer. That they'd had sex so that he could have known what it was like. So he'd always have the memory. He felt certain he could've made her cum.

He fucked his palm with reckless abandon— fantasizing about her. It was a painful, horrible, depressing fact—a dirty thing that he should've felt guilt over—but the mental barriers had broken under grief. His mind removed Rose from the words _cousin_ or _sister_ entirely; Now, Hugo was the cousin, Lily was the sister; he felt protective of both; And Malfoy was his brother in ways James would never be; His lines for family had expanded, the circle had grown—Rose no longer _had_ to play all the roles. Her role had evolved; Perhaps it had needed to for a while. Shedding the old words helped him shed the shame. Pleasure—love—was as addictive as any drug and accepting that he wanted who he wanted made it less painful, didn't it? Just a chance to cum together after all the horror and misery—he was a young man who had been through hell and was soon going there again; it was no longer beyond him to yearn for a girl.

X

X

X

The pair of them, clad in long coats with scarves around their necks, stood in the village of Ottery St. Catchpole in front of the unusually shaped building. The house was long and narrow, perhaps only twelve feet wide at the front, but it stretched some thirty feet back like a giant shoe box. It was five stories high and had a one story extension at the rear for the kitchen. The wooden framed sash windows were propped open with colorful sticks and the brick work, perhaps once a jaunty yellow. The house seemed to give off the vibe of a phallic shape.

"So...He's a bit of a loon." Scorpius began the introduction with some reservation. "But he's mighty clever and Rose's old friend."

Potter stared upwards taking in the odd architectural construction of Scamander's house.

"Interesting design," he murmured.

"Don't say it to his face, mate, unless you want to watch a grown bloke turn red."

One eyeroll.

Two impatient knocks on the door.

The door swung open.

"Hullo," came the greeting, followed by an owlish blink. Lorcan's bespectacled stare took in the new fellow, as well as the presence of Scorpius standing at side. "And who may you be? Are you another one of Rose's ex-boyfriends?"

Scorpius bit a grin as Potter stared back in outraged offense. It hadn't taken long at all for Lorcan to Lorcan the situation.

"I'm her cousin," Potter clarified coldly.

"Which one? She has millions."

"Potter."

"James?"

Green eyes flashed with contained anger. Scorpius nudged his ribs to snap him out. There was a time and place to get pissed about James' pervading existence, but this wasn't it.

At last, Potter extended out his hand with a curt, arrogant formality.

" _Albus_ Potter," he corrected.

With another owlish blink, a pleasant smile took Lorcan's features. He took the hand and gingerly shook it. Adjusting his spectacles, he peered in closely to further inspect his guest. " _Oh_...You're that dark-lord killing fellow from the papers, aren't you? You look less cutesy than your photos—I thought you were a teenager."

Potter glared openly now.

"May I come inside?" he said bluntly.

Lorcan, though flustered, was hasty to graciously shuffle aside and let Potter trudge in with his usual commanding air, dragging alongside him two large suitcases filled with research papers. Scorpius patted at Lorcan's shoulder with a snicker, trailing in behind the boy.

Lorcan's abode was as much a mess as ever, strewn with books and papers. Work benches were set up in every open space littered with many cauldrons and jars of assorted both living and dead ingredients. Scorpius slumped down on the kitchen table, stretching out his legs, while Potter trailed along the many benches, keenly inspecting the clutter. He peered through magnifying spectacles to observe the color of a fuming brew, already busy trying to make sense of the Unspeakable's work.

"Would you like some tea?" Lorcan asked, quickly developing the gracious sense of a host despite his sheepish nature.

"Sure," Scorpius said. He had lifted one of the many kneazles running amuck into his lap and was playing with its paws. He knew better than to get too attached though, for Lorcan's kneazles never lived long.

"Earl Grey," Potter murmured, knee deep in Lorcan's papers now. He flipped a page of one of the many binders strewn across the floor, making notes into his yellow notepad with a quill.

"I don't have that sort—will regular do, _Albus_ Potter?"

"Anything is fine, thank you."

Scorpius leant backwards against his chair, stretching out his arms. "Is Hugo around, Lorcan?" he yawned.

"Yes—I sent him into my garden to gather some herbs for my next trial."

"What herbs are you using?" Potter interjected. He was now, finally, sitting at the opposite end of Scorpius on the kitchen table. His suitcases were open, the sleeves were folded, and the quill was in hand. The head was ducked in focus over parchment. He was already etching more potion designs using Lorcan's half of the research.

Two cups in hand, Lorcan turned around and blinked benignly, before moving to set them on the table in front of his guests.

"I can give you the complete list if you are so curious, Albus Potter."

"I would like that, yes."

"You two are going to get along well." Scorpius grinned, watching as Lorcan pulled into the seat beside Potter and the two heads began to operate as one.

X

X

X

Four boys and one Lily sat in various locations in front of the large whiteboards spread across Lorcan's abode.

Potter was currently tracing complex formulas across the board that did not make sense to anyone but him and Lorcan. On the opposite end, Lorcan was doing much the same. Lily was translating ancient runic potions of similar context to aid with research for the potion—Given the frequency at which Lorcan's kneazles had been sacrificed across the Veil, they had not yet figured out a viable design. Hugo was dutifully chopping herbs for their next trial—and flobberworms, though both Potter and Lorcan had said flobberworms were _not_ needed—Hugo did not care, he said it was the _only_ potions ingredient he understood and therefore he **_would_** chop it. Scorpius himself, the hero of the hour, was...creating explosives.

There were few things in life Scorpius Malfoy found he was good at and simultaneously enjoyed. He was a proficient Healer but he did not enjoy his day job. And though he enjoyed girls, he'd learned, much to the dumping by his third consecutive girlfriend for being an arrogant, emotionally-absent shithead—in other words a _Slytherin_ —he was terrible with women.

Ultimately what it came down to was criminal endeavors. It was the reason why he and Potter, outside of a hatred for the mundane, had been (perpetually single) boyhood pals for so long. Despite his own best interests and much to the likely disappointment of his father—and much to the benefit of Potter—Scorpius was fucking amazing at criminal pursuits. Keeping treacherous secrets, committing theft, carrying out illegal schemes, devising Portkeys for quick escapes, and moreover creating dung-bombs.

Explosives, he had learned quickly, were not so different from dung-bombs.

It seemed quite clear to Scorpius that if they were going up against the most fearsome entity in existence—they may need to blow some shit up.

"Gather around, children," Lorcan called in a fog-horn-like voice from the whiteboard. Hugo dropped a handful of unchopped flobberworms with a pained groan and Lily annoyedly put down her quill, sending a lethal Potter-like glare at the now-flustered Unspeakable—they were siblings and these uncanny similarities persisted.

Scorpius, who was not a child, but still very much a child, merely came forward unoffended and took his designated seat.

The time had come when an important decision needed to be made. They needed to decide which Dimension to engineer the Veil. Two realms existed in which Rose could potentially reside. The Realm of the Dead. Or the Realm of the In Between Space.

"She's dead," Potter stated cuttingly, arms folded, leaning against a work bench. "We must go to the Realm of the Dead."

"I disagree," said Lorcan. "She's in the In Between Realm."

Potter stared at the Unspeakable with cold scrutiny.

He gave an arrogant nod, as if to say: _Prove_ it.

"The Creature won't kill The Ressurectionist," Lorcan declared.

"He'll kill anyone he can't use. He can't use Rose—She doesn't fit the profile of the type of wizard he recruits," Potter retaliated.

Lily scowled, offended. "Because she's female?"

Potter rolled his eyes. "Because she's _Rose_ ," he clarified, hands gripping the work bench behind him. "He needs wizards who would be willing create mass magical deaths ...He can't use Rose. She doesn't comply. She doesn't _bend_."

"He may not be able to use her, but he may keep her out of interest...How many humans exist that have crossed into the Realm of the Dead and returned?" Lorcan said. "She is, if nothing else, an interesting female specimen."

These words hit an unpleasant chord with everyone in the room.

Hugo—the little brother—gave a pained look. Lily looked uncomfortably away. Both Scorpius and Potter were now glaring horridly at Lorcan.

"What?" said the Unspeakable, oblivious to the hostility he had unwittingly invited with _interesting female specimen_.

"Don't be shitty, mate," Scorpius piped.

"What did I—"

"Change the subject," Potter cut, glaring. "Move along, Scamander."

Lorcan blinked, a bit flustered, but did exactly so. "So, if the Creature is indeed keeping her—our best bet is to engineer the Veil to allow us to enter the Realm of the In Between Space. ...But the Creature may be there as well."

All heads in the room swiveled toward Potter.

He maintained his fixed stare on Scamander.

"Give me time to learn to wield the Stone," he stated coldly. "I'll handle him."

Lorcan's brows shot up in anxiety.

Evidently, this was news to him.

"You'll take it to the Other Side?"

"Yes."

A dark, morbid silence settled. The younger siblings did not understand but Scorpius did all too well. It was what he'd been having nightmares about. They had finally come at the frightening crossways.

"And bring it back?" the Unspeakable inquired cautiously. His voice was shaking. He was just now becoming all too wary of the worst-case scenario. "And if you die on the Other Side, Potter? What becomes of the Stone then?"

Potter's eyes flared with something murderous. He slowly moved off the workbench.

Scorpius, sensing the inevitable fight, stood and quickly got between the Unspeakable and his sociopathic best mate.

"Let's take a break." Scorpius stated, then shot a severe look at the younger ones. "Hugo, Lily—go into the garden for a few minutes please."

The younger ones gave annoyed groans but quickly vacated.

Scorpius had placed a firm hand at Potter's chest trying to assuage.

"Sit down," he said.

"I don't want to—"

"Sit _down_ ," Scorpius ordered sternly. "Lorcan—you too."

Potter sunk into a seat, arms folded petulantly, still glaring. Scamander, uncaring of this hostility directed at him, was now shaking—his skinny arms and legs were rattling—finally privy to the many dangerous prospects of taking the Stone across the Veil. This was clearly more than what he'd signed up for.

"I...I don't know if I can—" The Unspeakable stammered, his glasses fogging from the nervous heat he was emitting. He took them off and shakily wiped them on his sleeve. "Can't let you take the Stone across—can't risk _magic_."

"There's no other way to fend off the Creature, Lorcan," Scorpius insisted. "We've got to bring our friend back."

"Risk your lives, sure. But _Magic_ cannot be the price."

"It won't be," Potter stated curtly. "I'll bring the Stone back—or Malfoy will. If I don't survive."

Scorpius' eyes flared.

"Both of us will," he amended, pressing a reassuring hand at Potter's tense shoulder. "No one's dying."

Lorcan still looked terribly anxious. Procuring a handkerchief, he wiped the sweatsheen formed at his brow.

"And what does the great Harry Potter think of this risk?" he croaked weakly.

"My father won't know." Potter folded his arms. "I'll have it back before he realizes it's missing."

Lorcan stared in abject silence.

"You better have a good plan then," the Unspeakable said, now glaring, summoning an uncharacteristic sternness. "I'm not letting _anyone_ cross the Veil if it puts Magic at stake. I _won't_ engineer it. Magic is too big, too important—I will **_not_** lose it."

Scorpius blinked.

Potter, still staring intently, leant in, sticking out his hand for the Unspeakable to shake.

"I'll bring the Stone back," he promised.

Lorcan did not shake the hand. He stood up in refusal.

"I would like everyone to go home for today. I must tend to my kneazles in quiet," he mumbled forlornly. "They need to be put down for a nap."

Potter blinked at this odd dismissal. His shoulders shrunk, disappointment waning on his features, but he rose to his feet. For while he may not have agreed with Scamander, he clearly respected him and his work. Scamander was the most necessary component to all of this—he _was_ the brightest being in the room.

An awkward pause settled.

"I'm sorry," Potter at last summoned the courtesy to mutter. "Let's just take a break and—"

"Please leave," Lorcan interjected.

Potter gave another startled blink but complied as he gathered his belongings, throwing a few cleaning charms out of courtesy and quickly vacated. Hugo and Lily were summoned from the garden and made to—irritably—help clean up before leaving as well.

Lorcan kept Scorpius back for a few spare minutes. They sat at the kitchen table with coffees in hand.

"Your friend's mad," Lorcan told Scorpius, seriously, without preamble. It was a deduction the Unspeakable had made in knowing the boy for very little time. "Potter may be homicidal or suicidal, I'm uncertain—But he's not sane if he thinks risking _Magic_ makes sense in this situation—in _any_ situation."

Coming from Lorcan, an assessment of insanity was quite a statement.

Scorpius gave a pained frown.

"Taking the Stone across is our only shot," he responded bleakly. "It's suicide otherwise."

"It may be genocide if something happens to the Stone," Lorcan stated, fixing his glasses sternly.

"So what do you reckon?"

Lorcan stared out at his garden for a few moments.

"I don't trust Potter," he declared, after a minute. "To protect the Stone above everything else. He may put everything his father has worked for at stake."

"Nonsense. Potter loves magic more than anything else in the world."

Lorcan's face etched in skepticism. He did _not_ think Potter loved magic _more than anything else_...and that, to Scorpius, was a **_blood-curdling_** thought.

Because for years and years and years, Magic has been Potter's entire mission statement. That was his reason to exist. That had been his _entire_ _life_.

And if the existential crisis had gone too far and priorities had now changed to something... less objective...Scorpius didn't know if he could trust his best mate to lead them into their next adventure. Because Scorpius already knew he could trust the sociopath. He had done so his entire childhood and Potter had never let him get killed. He _understood_ the sociopath. But if Potter was no longer thinking with his head, no longer calculating and logically ascertaining all of the risks—If he had grown _too soft_ —What would happen when things went wrong? Would Potter let Scorpius be collateral? Would he let the _Stone_ get destroyed?

Sensing this inner turmoil, Lorcan leant in and spoke in a conspiratorial voice that was barely a whisper.

" _You_ bring it back then—doesn't matter what happens to Potter—If something goes wrong on the Other Side, _you_ bring the Stone back. That is **_priority_**."

Anxiety ran vicious tremors up Scorpius' spine. He swallowed his deafening heartbeat.

"Mhm." He nodded faintly.

X

 **Review, I love your thoughts**


	45. Crave

Hunger.

It _burned_. The serpentine fangs coiled deep within her belly, like blades curving. They were Tom's fingers. Her stomach was a pouch of burning magic, crisscrossed with red veins. Seeds of magic had taken root, splitting into small plants that inched up her body, tendrils wrapping around the soft masses of her organs and the trellis of her bones before sprouting out of her mouth and into the darkness.

She was hungry again. She couldn't remember when she wasn't hungry.

Coy, succulent; the taste of magic was addictive, like strawberry sugar. It flit across her tongue. It tasted like Tom. His mouth, his fingers. Tom—in every way a perfect, wizard speciman—was the _embodiment_ of magic. Her stomach folded in hunger. Had she always craved magic in such cruel ways?

Tom said the hunger existed because she had crossed the boundaries of Death as a child, when she brought her brother back. It had been latent, but it surfaced now in desperation—The greatest survival mechanism imaginable. He said she needed to eat to sustain it or she would die. He told her to feed as often as possible. He told her there was so many more she could eat on the Other Side—the Living Side—that he would guide her after she had Resurrected him, that he would make her powerful enough to consume the Creature himself.

When she wasn't feeding, she lay curled up between stones, like the earth-colored clod she was. She lay feeling like a creature of hideous deformity, a sickling that needed to be slaughtered—In due time. _First_ she would kill the Creature. _Then_ Tom would kill her. For he had promised he would. Lovely, beautiful Tom. He did not care about her. He was open with this fact. He did not _care_ about her.

He also did not lie.

And what did _care_ matter? Life had offered little care to begin with. The craving had left. She no longer wanted it. She wanted _vengeance_. **Hatred** had consumed her—now _that_ was an emotion Lord Voldemort could appreciate. A morbidly furious impulse burned bright in her chest. Violent scars of torture stained her body, her thighs, her insides—She wanted to destroy... _mutilate_ the Creature in the most gruesomely filthy way imaginable. She wanted to make him scream for mercy, _bleating_ against a nail-raked, blood-painted wall. She wanted carnage, **_craved_** it—she wanted to drive a wedge through his member. She desired brutal physical mutiliation. The tiny capillaries in her eyes had burst from anguished rage—spots of blood bloomed in the pale jelly of her eyeballs, a scarlet glimmer in her pupils.

Unkemptness had taken her; it looked like weeds were sprouting from her head, red shoots poking from the stumps of her scalp. She felt ugly, vile, freakish. Inhumanly distorted in every way. Her thoughts, her body, her spirit. She wanted to kill the Creature and then she wanted to die.

Her belly had swollen a little but the rest of her body was rake-like and her face was without color. She might as well have been transparent. She might as well have been a ghost. When she told Tom he gave a tinkling laugh.

"Are you hungry, dearest?" he often said, watching with a ravenous expression, eyes glittering like skulking insects.

"Yes."

His lips would peel back, showing the beautiful limestone tiling of his teeth. She would lean in to taste his smile. It was cold but oddly appealing. It did not satiate the hunger but it reminded her of the ache in her belly.

Tom provided her human contact in gentlemanly, albeit, perfunctory ways: A hand on the face, an embrace, sometimes a kiss. She was still thankful. How important a human touch became after—what felt like a _lifetime_ —spent in an abyss of silence and darkness. Sometimes there were shrieks that reverberated through the empty air. They echoed from the Living dimension. It was when she knew the Creature was hunting. It was before the bloody rainfall.

Then she went back out to hunt, combing her fingers through the mess of bloodied entrails and grubbing for appendages to suck the last essence of magic from. She avoided the faces, did not like to look at their humanness. And on those days when draughts seeped through the abyss—when there was no bloody rainfall, when the Creature wasn't feeding—and she couldn't find anything to eat, she would gnaw on whatever little morsal she could find, hardened human flesh cracking between her teeth. She suckled the last drop of magic out of every broken finger. Often fingers were dry and there was a crunch to them. Flesh-grain skittered down her throat. The ash on coarse human skin tasted bitter and rancid. It didn't matter. She ate it anyway. It didn't matter. Rose had hit rock-bottom many times in life.

If this was yet another hellhole she'd landed herself in, then she would **_claw_** out.

X

 **So...thoughts on that reunion? Soon, promise.**


	46. Assemble pt 2

A breakthrough was imminent. Scorpius knew this because Potter was getting more and more restless.

A large cauldron overflowing at the ends sat atop the large table in the center of Lorcan's house. Potter was at the helm. This was the final run—He had been awake for nearly _twenty-eight hours_ meticulously perfecting this brew. Dark circles etched eyes. Hair looked like it hadn't seen a comb in weeks. The stained sleeves of his starched— _battered_ —white button shirt folded to the forearms, the ends of the garment tidily tucked into his slim trousers (Scorpius learned quickly this was to prevent himself from catching flame). With slow, deliberate stirring, he tamed the fumes emitting from the volatile concoction. Enlarged spectacles rested atop his head. His expression was gloomy with focus, his profile stiff, cuttingly, menacingly cold, as he deposited three precise drops of wickyfluid into the cauldron.

"Scamander, pass me the gillyroot," he instructed. The Unspeakable, flipping through a dozen potion volumes consecutively, swiftly reached across the table with a long, spindly arm to offer the plant-form. Potter took it, chopped off the ends with brutal swiftness, and crushed its liquid with his fist, allowing it to drain into the brew. A burst of green emitted. Three counterclockwise swirls followed. A quill scratched exhaustively—Lily, the scribe, was making careful notes of the procedure, in case the potion needed to be replicated. Potter worked fast, intuitively, but he worked in his head. He often did not communicate steps effectively.

"Scamander; Now it's time for—"

"Flobberworms?" Hugo piped hopefully, for the umpteenth time. His mop of brown curls frizzy from the outside humidity, he was panting, having just returned with a basket of botanicals from Lorcan's gardens. "You really should add at least _some_ flobberworms—"

Potter sent a sharp, all-pervading glare to nip the young boy's bluster back into place.

Frightened, Hugo skittishly slid into his designated seat next to Scorpius at the circular table.

Scorpius, bleary-eyed, was perhaps not as as alert as everyone else in the room, having just returned from a twelve hour shift in the clinic. He hardly seemed to notice when his elbow slipped and nearly knocked a jar of dragon fangs off the table—caught by Hugo's fist in the nick of time.

"Get out," Potter snapped harshly.

"Shit, it was an accid—"

" _Out_."

An exiled Scorpius sulked out of the gardens and collapsed onto a comfy bed of flowers. Naptime commenced.

Several minutes followed in a blissfully sleepy haze, ladybugs crawling up his leg, a kneazle nipping at his fingers, until he was pinched awake by a kneeling Hugo, who too had been exiled.

"I brought up flobberworms again," he explained sheepishly.

A few minutes later, Lily too made the gardens.

"I was making too many scratchy noises with the quill," she huffed with annoyance.

An hour or two passed as the troupe of exiled individuals waited idly in the gardens, blowing dandelions, eating berries, and laying side by side trying to guess cloud shapes. Potter's hot-blooded and overly aggressive nature meant they were very close, after weeks and weeks of obsessive experimentation, that they were _finally_ on the verge of breakthrough.

Then, a dejected-looking Lorcan arrived in the gardens, coat in arm, exiled from his own home.

They stared in stunned incredulity.

"Now he's gone too fucking far," Scorpius shot, eyes narrowing.

"What did _you_ do," Hugo piped.

"I was blinking too loudly," The Unspeakable sighed, with an owlish blink. "I can't help it though."

"My brother's a douchebag," Lily fumed.

"He really is," agreed Scorpius.

"Might be best to just leave him be," Lorcan insisted, yanking his arms through the sleeves of his raggedy coat. "He is near finishing…I'm going to head to the Ministry to finish engineering the Veil—come along, Hugo, your blood is still needed." He stuck out his hand, wriggling the long fingers.

The younger boy, tired of being probed with a needle, nevertheless lifted and strode over to take the hand with a groan. "Rosie owes me a gallon of blood," he uttered under his breath, before the pair vanished with a surge of air.

Scorpius looked over at Lily with a raise of the brows.

"So it's just you and me, huh," he said grinning.

Lily stood up. "Nope."

"Wait—where are _you_ going?"

"The library. I can always find more potions to translate."

Scorpius quickly scrambled to his feet.

"Screw the library; we've been working all day—Let's go get drunk." He paused for a second, considering a potential roadblock. "You're old enough, right?"

Lily stared annoyedly. "Are you already _that_ bored Malfoy?"

"I get easily bored," he confessed.

"One drink," Lily assented, and Scorpius' eyes shone looked like a gleeful child's.

"So, little one..." He slunk an overly chummy arm around her, much to her visible annoyance, as they strode briskly out the yard gate. He was all too pleased to have the company of a pretty girl to go out drinking with after an exhausting day, even if the girl in question happened to be Potter's little sister.

"What do you do when you're not being Potter's sister? Do you have any other qualities?" he said, making amiable small talk.

"Do you have qualities besides being my brother's girlfriend?"

Scorpius' face contorted in offense.

"Hey now— _he's_ the girlfriend."

Lily gave a sputtering laugh.

"I know you do his groceries, Malfoy."

"Well someone's gotta make sure the shithead doesn't starve."

"It's a shame he can't see it," Lily lamented. "Can't see you."

For the glimmer of a second, an uncharacteristic frown captured Scorp's face.

"You really think he can't see it?" he laughed hoarsely, trailing a hand through his hair. "I'm always fucking there though."

Lily frowned in sympathy. "My brother's an arsehole," she fumed angrily.

"He is," agreed Scorpius. "He doesn't mean it though."

"See? You're still defending him—how are you _not_ the girlfriend?"

Shoving Lily to the side—she gave an alarmed yelp— he just as quickly pulled her back into a friendly hold and ruffled her hair. He couldn't let the little one stray too far. The older brother would kill him, although he had gotten considerably less homicidal lately.

"So, Rune-master, what are the chances crossing the Veil _doesn't_ kill one of us?"

Lily frowned.

"If you're scared, Malfoy; then _don't_ cross."

Something tightened in his throat. He couldn't quite get the words out.

"Is it because you're in love with Rosie?"

An odd quiet fell. Was he? He hadn't thought about Rose for a while. He hadn't really seen her in a few years. And when he _did_ think about her, it was in nightmares about his consumption, which was not an appealing experience...He felt rather anxious about the prospect of bringing Rose back into their world. It terrified him. But Potter was unbudging.

"Nah," he answered, scruffing the back of his head with some awkwardness. "But I was."

Lily watched him carefully.

"And did she know?"

Scorpius nodded matter-of-factly, without any particular emotion.

"So are you trying to prove something to her by doing this, Malfoy? Or are you trying to prove something to _my brother_?"

Scorpius frowned.

"Don't really know." He gave a shrug of deliberate nonchalance.

Later that evening they returned to Lorcan's house to find Potter passed out on the table, a book splayed over his head.

The potion sat fuming.

It was finished.

It had nearly destroyed Potter in the process. Scorpius lifted the boy, splaying his arm around his shoulders, and apparated him back to his own flat. When they arrived in the sullen, dingy, depressing room, Potter was on his feet. He looked relatively steady. "I think I ought to sleep," he mumbled.

Scorpius grinned. "There's something I never thought I'd hear you say."

He smiled bleakly. "What else does a wizard do when his work is finished?"

Scorpius' grin fell away. Finished.

Potter moved onto his bed. The mattress didn't even have sheets; that's how inattentive to his own needs he was. "Scorp, I…" He stopped, his mouth open, then waved it off.

"No, what is it?"

He sighed wearily. "I think I don't want to be alone."

Scorpius frowned.

Merlin. He really needed to find the bloke a girlfriend, didn't he? Or an elf.

"You're not alone," Scorpius laughed, plopping himself down on the one stool in the room. "I'm right here—Want me to stay until you fall asleep?"

Potter fell backwards on his bed, and then curled up around a pillow. He looked small, child-like. So very needy.

"Malfoy; You understand why I have to do it, don't you?" he shuddered.

Scorpius' throat felt pinhole-thin. He swallowed hard.

X

X

X

A heavy weight hung in Scorpius' stomach for the next couple of days. The nightmares were getting worse. Fear became a shackle, a knife in his gut, slowly twisting.

"I think we've just made history," Lorcan announced when he got the Veil finally working.

Scorpius met his best mate's eye but Potter, much like him, did not look elated.

For all the jokes he made, and for the cold face Potter wore; Fear was a constant hammer on their heads, a suffocating presence.

They would be communicating with Lorcan when they were across with a commlink.

Lorcan, worried more about the Stone than anything else, had also made a small apparatus that would pull whichever one of them was holding the Stone back. So that if the Creature showed up, or if anything happened that threatened that safety of the Stone—the worst case scenario. Lorcan said it was the only condition that he would allow the Stone to be taken across the Veil.

Potter agreed it was for the best.

Lorcan had said that he would then close off the passageway, so that the Creature could not enter their world. Another nightmarish possibility—they were going against everything Potter's father had worked for. They was bypassing the shield Harry Potter had propped, creating a small break in it which could potentially allow horror to once more infiltrate their world.

The more and more Scorpius thought of it, the _less_ sense it made to him.

Because this was all, all, _all_ for Rose.

Scorpius was having serious second thoughts. Lorcan too was beginning to express second thoughts. Every other day, he vented them to Scorpius, insisting that they try to talk Potter out of taking the Stone. It was too great a risk. But Potter was unmoving. He wasn't addressing the risks, the calculations—wouldn't talk about what would happen if things went wrong on the Other Side. Perhaps, because he already knew the risks were _too grand_. That the odds were against them. That what they were doing wasn't sane. Wasn't objectively smart. And certainly wasn't for any Greater Good.

And still.

The day before their Crossing, Scorpius' headache was so bad he could barely withstand light. He was at Potter's place again, helping him pack. They were having drinks to celebrate their last night potentially alive—Potter didn't drink but he was making an exception. He was also doing cocaine. There was a feverish intensity to his movements: the prospect of what they were about to do—what they were about to risk—was now finally setting in.

Scorpius couldn't think about the fact that in twenty-four hours he would potentially never see his best mate's face again. Under the glow of the single bulb in the room, it was all strange angles and hollows and unearthly pallor.

"Did you nick it?" Scorpius asked anxiously.

Potter reached into his pocket and procured the Stone. It was green, gleaming. And something about it made Scorp's heart ram against its ribcage.

All the magic in the world. In the palm of one boy's hand.

"Have you practiced with it?" Scorpius quipped.

"Of course I have."

"How much?" Scorp demanded.

Potter was quiet. Cautiously so.

"A month," he admitted.

"Fucking hell." That wasn't nearly enough time.

"I have a...basic understanding," Potter murmured.

"And what happens if the Creature shows up. Can you kill him?"

"No," came the whisper.

"But you can fend him off," Scorpius insisted. "Create a diversion. Buy us time."

Potter glanced up with bloodshot eyes. "Ideally, yes," he whispered.

The chill of terror surged anew—Potter didn't sound prepared or confident at all. Why the _hell_ were they doing this?

"Malfoy, listen..."

Scorpius glanced up, his face flushed from the intense anxiety he was experiencing.

"When we're on the Other Side...If something goes wrong..." Potter swallowed, staring hollowly into his pitcher. "I'm giving you the Stone... I'm going to tell Scamander to pull you out immediately."

Scorpius gave a pained frown.

"Fuck that. It's all or nothing."

Potter shot him an insufferable look.

"Scamander's right," he said tersely. "Magic is the priority. Can't leave the Stone on the Other Side."

"We're not leaving anything or _anyone_ on the Other Side, alright?" Scorpius gritted his teeth, glaring. "So get your head out of your arse and _focus_. I don't want to hear this bullshit again."

Potter was shrinking smaller and smaller by the second. He was waning. He wasn't putting on a brave face; he was _too_ being honest. Scorpius didn't know how to deal. He wanted the sociopath back.

He wanted to shake Potter but instead he gave a sigh and sunk down beside the boy. He clasped a firm, reassuring hand at the back of his neck.

"Listen, mate..."

"Don't."

"What?"

"I don't want to hear it." Potter's breaths were sharp and shuddering. His head sunk into his hands. "Whatever it is you plan to say," His voice came muffled. "You won't get the reaction you want. Not from me...Save it for Rose."

There was a deep pit in Scorpius' chest and it was yawning wide and hollow and in a minute it was going to swallow him and he couldn't let Potter see that. He removed his hand from his friend's nape.

"Fine—You're an arsehole, and I fucking hate you," he snapped. "Better?"

"Thank you," came the mumble. Potter's head was still in his hands.

X

X

X

They'd taken the potion. It sat like a leaden weight in Scorpius' stomach. His emotions were shrouded in fear, but curiosity compelled Scorpius down the steep steps, close enough to see the curtain gently rippling, make out all the ancient archway's cracks. It was amazing that the Veil stood as it did. The tattered black curtain rippled back and forth as though it had just been touched, and as Scorpius drew closer still, he felt a rush of cold air and then complete stillness.

He shivered.

"Ready?" said Potter.

He gave a soft nod.

It was a wholly ethereal feeling, being so close to the Veil, pungent and dark and inviting. There passed a moment where his consciousness slipped. He couldn't remember what he was doing there, who he was, only that he wanted nothing more at the moment than to walk through—

Potter grabbed his arm and they did just that.

In a moment's flash, they stood in the midst of a vast darkness. Fear hit him like a falling tree in an ice storm. He was wearing shoes, yet the soles of his feet were hot. The hair on the back of his head stood up. He was horrified by this vast, empty, wasteland which surrounded him. It was pitch black. His eyes could not penetrate the darkness no matter which way he turned. It was the complete shutdown of light, except for the dull light around him. This darkness weighed heavily on his shoulders. The darkness felt as if it were brooding and rotating about him. Then, the loneliness, and the sheer depth of his aloneness took his fear to a level he never knew. There streamed the smell of…copper. The pungent vapor filled his nostrils, turned his stomach. He heard muffled voices spelling out from his left and from behind him.

The underworld sky was black and sunless and the fumes that fell from the surface were no water vapor; instead they curled and eddied with a silvery-white luminescence. Scorpius' eyes became fixated on the wisps as they danced ever closer. In moments his eyes, nose and throat became blistered, closely followed by the rest of his skin. It was a fire that didn't consume, it just kept on licking coldly.

"Potter—" But Potter had already reached across the darkness and clasped his shaking hand, yanking him along, before the words could leave Scorpius' mouth; It didn't matter that they were two blokes who despised holding hands with other blokes—masculine egos waned under the terror of unfamiliarity.

"Stay close, Malfoy."

Scorpius could see an inhuman figure standing at distance in the dimness of the wisps. Its head was cocked slightly to the right and its back was crooked, making the figure look tired and eyes clamped onto them, never looking away. It just stood still, watching silently.

To Scorpius' ever racing heart, the _thing_ advanced on them, its physique hardly discernible in the shadowy twilight. With each slow movement that belied the speed it was capable of, something dripped, oozing great globs of phlegm and depositing them on the pot-holed terrain.

It then became discernible, the monster. It had the distinct feeling of something human—or something that had _once_ been human. Its mouth was torn, creating an unnatural smile that smeared across its face. Small black stitches stapled the mouth attempting to keep it shut, however blood continued pouring out through the tangled veins. Its jaw was lined with simple teeth yet its breath reeked of raw sewage and rotting meat—corpses. It was as if this monster was a horrifying distortion of a ghost; the being's face was as pale as snow. Neither did it have hair, nor eyebrows; it was completely bold. A sliced up shirt sat around its neck. Blood had melted into the fabric and obvious creases were stained into it.

Over its exposed belly lay crusty flaps of concave skin...The beast seemed frustrated that its food was backing away slowly and thrashed its tail in fury. Its eyes swivelled wildly, searching, its nocturnal vision seemingly adept for discerning rapid motion. As a final resort it began to emit clicking noises, using sonar to detect his difficult prey—him and Potter.

Paralyzed in fear, the scent of perturbation invaded Scorpius. His terrorized feet refused to move, much to Potter's insistent yanking, and all his hands agreed to do was cover his frightened face. He'd never wanted to be safe so badly in his life. He coughed. Immediately, his cough echoed, constantly repeated, quieter every time through the dark and gloomy abyss. He knew the space must have been big, very big and he knew his nightmare was coming soon, very soon...

Scorpius procured his wand and a faint light shone through the empty air.

Monsters everywhere. They were surrounded.

X


	47. Fight

"So…plan?" Scorpius' face was stricken with terror.

"I'm thinking," Potter murmured, voice a cautious whisper as he surveyed the aberrations. Gnarled snarling and hissing emanated; the sound was like the whirring of mechanical engines, a great cacophony of inhuman distortion. They stood, the beasts, heads ducked in predatory formation, hulking bodies keening forward—panting, salivating, _hungry_.

Scorpius' chest gave minor palpitations.

Is this what happened to wizards who fell across the Veil? Did they become starved, disfigured monsters? Did they start _eating_ each other?

Another tremor of fear; Was _Rose_ like these monsters?

Potter's hand remained insistently clasped at his sleeve, trying to nudge the blond behind himself—Scorpius could throw a hex or two, but he was no master duelist.

He did have demolitions though.

"Watch this," he said, pulling one out.

With an adrenaline-fueled toss of his fist out into the darkness, both he and Potter ducked their heads, wincing as the device landed—a great rush of energy penetrated the air. A column of magic rushed up into a vacuum by the explosion. Then came the blast of smoke and heat, spreading in a lateral sheet at nearly a hundred feet in all directions. Morbid groans of animal pain, of dying, rang out. It was an enormous explosion.

A haze of smoke had formed amid the indistinguishable darkness.

One of the surviving aberrations lunged forward, unexpectedly through the haze. It nearly caught Potter off guard, who staggered but reflexively lunged backwards. He surged a rageful blue flash of crackling light from the tip of his fingers—a swift laceration spell to slice through the head of the beast in one grotesque sweep. The body collapsed with a groaning thud, spilling a pool of blood on the ground. When Scorpius stared in frozen horror at the devastating disfigurement, Potter replied, curtly, dusting off his fingers, "You'll need to get used to it Scorp."

Swallowing, he gave a quick, terse nod. If Potter needed to be a fucking— _psychopath killer_ to get them through this literal hell, then so be it.

More aberrations lunged from the fog. In his element, Potter was systemically firing hexes around the parameter, impatiently pacing in that cold, sleek manner of ruthless efficiency; He dropped as many beasts in tracks as he could visibly see in the vague lighting of falling wisps from the underworld sky. More seemed to emerge where others died off. They had Potter surrounded in a smaller circle and were taking turns lunging, clawing and maiming, taking fierce jabs.

One nearly stampeded over Scorpius, who was—now panicked—shooting wayward hexes in any direction that made sense. A gnarled hand gripped his shoulder and then he was down on his arse with a yelp, trying to frantically back away. His trapper gazed with unutterable horror through the blackened space as it neared; It was a human face, repulsively deformed in contour, and from the spaces of its twisted, stitched-up mouth poured black ichor.

Scorpius wanted to shriek.

The frame of the beast hulked. The paws went through a convulsive motion, and the limbs contracted. With a jerk, the body rolled forward and Scorpius' limbs were hastily scrambling back, heart attack rustling in his chest, praying for this horrific nightmare to be over. He couldn't staring into those eyes; They were black, deep, jetty black—

A thunderous hex blew through the air, throwing the beast off-kilter— _skidding_ to the side. The aberration snarled, slipping in the slick of the bloodied ground. Another hex smashed against its naked exterior, throwing it to the floor. Finally came the slicing enchantment to finish the deed.

Potter, covered head to toe in blood, strode over and cast a dark stare down at the dead beast—as if scrutinizing his craftsmanship—before yanking Scorpius roughly up by the arm.

"Err...good job," Scorpius coughed through a face streaked in blood. Potter, blood marks on his own face, nodded tersely in acknowledgement.

Friendship.

The dead body was a ghoulish mannequin, esophagus and arteries sticking out like so much corrugated and rubber tubing. The corpse still had to be warm, for the blood was thickening but it had not yet dried on its waxy skin.

Scorpius, then, glanced around at the rest of the carnage.

Bodies sprawled. Their throats had been cut and they lay like butchered animals— _humans_ —in a waste of blood...One corpse lay with the mouth open, the head almost cleft from the body. Scorpius saw again the severed vessels, sticking like corrugated pipes through the clotted blood. Another was propped, ungainly as a rag doll, against a large stone-like construction. His head had drooped forward and over his chest a great mat of blood had spread like a bib.

The corpses somehow looked even _less human_ than their living counterparts.

Scorpius really, _really_ hoped Rose wasn't _anything_ like these creatures.

Because he already knew that Potter, the sentimental boy, would _not_ be killing his own cousin.

So if Rose, for some horrible cannibalistic reason, did _need_ to be... killed...

A terrifying thought.

It wasn't that he didn't care about Rose—he did. _Of course_ he did. But...

Was he prepared to die for her? Especially knowing what she may have been capable of. If she could consume magic—if she could consume wizards, _them_ —

Was it safe to bring her back into their world?

Potter didn't seem to care about this question at all; a supposition that _terrified_ Scorpius.

Swallowing his array of gruesome worst-case-scenarios, he ran an anxious hand through his hair; Wet with blood. There were bruises on his face, cuts and scrapes, and with the application of pressure at his chest, he found three of his ribs were broken— Odd how fear dulled the sensation of painful injury. Bruises etched his thighs and abdomen. He removed vials of healing potion from his bag, set them across the ground, began mixing together the appropriate brew for all his—

"MOVE!"

It was too late.

A flash of light and at the final second, as the beast cavorted forward with crescendoing steps, Potter had to lunge, falling against Scorpius to shield the boy's body with his own. The aberration gripped Potter's lower leg into his enlarged mouth, chewing senselessly with sharp teeth—a sharp groan ached from his mouth. " _Ahh_ —"

Now enraged, Potter shot a ruthless flash of red that exploded into fiery sparks and blew the aberration back. His knee, a chewed mass of gnarled flesh hung. He groaned out in fierce pain through shaky, shallow gasps, biting at his torn lip, gripping menacingly at Scorpius' arm, as if to command the Healer to fucking _fix_.

Hastily Scorpius drew an assemblage of potions from his bag and, with shaking, panicking hands, mixed the correct brew.

"Just...hold on..." he panted.

He brought the mixture to Potter's mouth, made him drink it— _held_ open his jaw and _forced_ it against his gag-reflex though the intense, muscle-clenching pain.

A groan of relief expelled from the boy's throat. The potion reconstructed his leg—his bones, while chewed broken, were all thankfully present. The skin, muscle, and vessels were destroyed and his leg looked like a bloody mass of broken flesh, and for that Scorpius poured another mixture into a small drinking cup—and once more, forced it down the boy's throat.

The strong sedative properties of the concoction shut down his nervous system. Potter's head blearily collapsed onto his lap, lashes fluttering close. Unconscious.

Scorpius stared down the boy abjectly. Around them, luminescent swirls wafted down from the starless sky—their sole form of illumination in this hellish abyss. There were no sounds, but he made hasty use of a concealing charm and cast one over them. Then, to keep himself from getting scared-shitless while waiting for Potter to awaken, he hummed an uppity melody under his breath.

Humming did not calm him.

It was odd how completely dependent he felt on Potter in terrifying situations, whereas Potter was completely dependent on him in normal situations—like keeping groceries stocked—Scorpius supposed everybody had their strengths; Potter's strength just happened to be killing and getting killed.

To occupy himself, he ran—clinical, mind you—hands across Potter's chest and abdomen area, checking for internal injuries. The stomach had a large gash. Healer training had taught Scorpius that stomach wounds were the most difficult injury to treat, though in the short-term, extreme blood loss and evisceration were the two most pressing matters. If both were accounted for, internal bleeding was next on the list, with the victim having anywhere between three and forty-eight hours to live if untreated.

At least probability was on Potter's side.

The worst of the wounds managed, Scorpius withdrew a blue potion from his bag, procuring a clean rag and dabbing it on the region quickly. It would sting horrible but the affront to skin cells was a minor price to pay, especially considering how much blood Potter had lost.

Throwing aside the empty vial, Scorpius pulled one last potion out, a dark orange one. Uncorking it, he threw back the Pepperup Potion in one gulp. Though steam did spray forth from his ears, energy also coursed through his body, clearing the fog from his head. Scooping up his wand, he leapt to his feet, waving the soft light at the tip of his wand to check the premises.

Nothing. For now.

Consciousness returned to Potter quickly, as if awaking from a light sleep, for which Scorpius was glad. He did want to be in the darkness alone. Before any of Potter's other senses could return, pain boldly proclaimed its presence. He groaned out. Scorpius hastily ushered more potion mixture into his mouth, waiting, watching as the boy slowly worked the nerve to sit again.

"You okay?" he said, handing him a Pepperup potion for morale.

Potter brusquely nodded, downing it in one gulp, and Scorpius nipped at the boy's swollen eye with a potion-drenched cotton ball. Slowly the painful wound dissipated.

"Holy shit." Scorpius gave a hoarse, agitated laugh. "That was something...I thought we were dead."

In the gloom of wisps, Potter's wounded features flickered with offense.

"Have I ever let you die?" he demanded quietly.

Scorpius bleakly shook his head.

"But first time for everything, right?" he tried to joke.

It wasn't a funny joke. Green eyes teemed with an uncharacteristic hurt, before growing hard, vicious.

Angrily reaching into his pocket, Potter yanked out the Stone, took Scorpius' palm, and slapped it inside.

"It's yours to hold onto if you don't trust me," Potter said, before coughing into his sleeve.

Tension tore through Scorpius' heart. "I don't want it." He scrambled to his feet, staggering forward to return the Stone. Potter moved away, out of reach.

"Please don't—"

"It's safer in your hands than mine," came the curt response.

Scorpius glared fixedly, miserably at his best mate, who seemed smaller and bleaker than ever in the faint wisp light. He hated the point Potter was trying to make—because if it came down to it, if it came down to the _two_ of them—Lorcan would pull the person _with the Stone_ back out.

The other one _did not matter._

With shaking hands and a deep, shaking sigh, Scorpius tucked the Stone into his bag.

A sudden wind roared, howling, ripping his hair around. Rising to feet, their heads tilted, scouring for the source. There were no trees or anything distinguishable to make sense of the direction of the natural disaster-like hurricane surge—It felt like—like...It was coming from _above_. Scorpius took a few involuntary steps backwards as it thrashed against his head in chaotic booms. Then rain started, not slowly, but so thick he could hardly see Potter standing a few paces away. It pummeled his skin raw.

His breathing deepened when he caught a faint taste of the dripping liquid. Thick coppery fumes immediately went up Scorpius' nose, triggering his sinuses. Violent coughs erupted from his throat.

"It's—it's— _blood!_ "

"Keep your voice down," Potter hissed, and with a surging beam of light, cast an umbrella-like charm over their heads.

They stood, as a sole point of life, in the morbidity of blood-rain, the gloom of darkness.

A soft pitter-patter echoed, liquid splattering against pebbled ground.

Hands shaking, Scorpius downed another Pepperup Potion, as well as a swig of whiskey for posterity. They were in hell. Of course it would rain blood. Made perfect sense. Right?

As he cleaned the slick of blood from them with a silvery charm, Potter removed an odd fabric from his own bag—at first glance it looked like a rag but unfolding revealed a shirt. Light pink—small—feminine—Scorpius had already begun to miss feminine things... _females_ —He realized, rather quickly, that it was Rose's old blouse. Potter dropped it unceremoniously on the ground and uttered some charm. Scorpius understood its purpose at once.

They were going to use Rose's old shirt to track her down.

Nearly instantaneously, a sharp line of light burst from the article of clothing, trailing into the never-ending darkness of the vast abyss.

It had created a clear pathway for them to follow.

Immense relief washed over Scorpius. It meant that Rose _was_ in this realm. Scamander _had_ been right. And she was somewhere, hopefully, _nearby_.

"Let's move," Potter said.

They tread with caution. The gloom of the vast abyss hung dark and foreboding, but there was an odd lulling peace in its sullen ambiance. Scorpius had to wonder how the dimension ever came to be. His eyes flickered over thick, dark plant-like protrusions that became visible the deeper they went—they looked like... broken _limbs_...a blood-curdling thought...Scorpius was _not_ about to go over and check.

Another oddity existed. A...breathing sound, heavy, musky, that seemed omnipresent. Like a large looming animal, but whenever they turned their heads nothing was there—Potter, evidently, could hear it too. They did not talk about it; there was no point and there was no time. Everything about this place was disturbing...There lingered the scent of sickening deformity in the air, and after a few...minutes, hours?...of walking, it seemed clear to Scorpius why the monsters were the way they were.

Something toxic, so very toxic hung in the air. Some sort of perfume that imbibed the senses and ensnared the mind. Polluted the concious. A feral sickness.

Potter's feet came to sudden halt. Scorpius looked over at his clenched jaw, then followed his gaze.

There was...another one of those _things_ they'd encountered earlier. Maybe not.

No.

The limbs were skinny but there was a human shape to this one. This one was distinctly female, not deformed like those other aberrations. She was dressed in a lumpy piece of cloth that seemed only to have three holes present for the head and arms. Her hair was splotched against her scalp. Knee-deep she stood, in a pile of sickeningly bloody entrails, unbothered, scrounging around, as if searching for something specific.

The trail seemed to lead to...

Scorpius' mouth fell.

"That's Rose?" he echoed.

At the mention of her name, the girl looked up. Something frightened—and yet oh so feral—flashed in the large, bloodshot eyes. For a second, emotion registered on the span of her emaciated face—some sort of _recognition_ —but then she blinked and all recognition was gone. She returned, rather casually, to her scavenging.

Scorpius turned in horror to look at Potter, whose eyes had not left the girl. He was surveying her with a contained emotion; he did _not_ want Scorpius to see. He had not yet moved towards her, nor made any effort to make himself known.

"What was she eating?" Scorpius said faintly. "Was she eating..."

Potter, jaw tense, seemed fixed in deliberation.

"The only way she could have survived is by eating magic," he said, at last.

Unbridled terror shot though Scorpius. He clutched at his face, his hair, so utterly stricken he felt like he was going to _puke_.

"Fuck," he hissed. "We're _fucked_."

Potter sent him a sharp glare, then made a gesture telling to follow. Keeping his distance, Scorpius tread cautiously in the boy's steps as he neared her. They trailed past—an unburied graveyard essentially—a bed of skulls and dismembered body parts. The nauseating scent of entrails lingered. Eventually, they stood close enough that she _had_ to be aware of their presence, but she made no move to acknowledge them. She kept rummaging through the gory clutter.

"Rose?" Potter inquired, with more softness than Scorpius had ever heard from the boy. He was nearly standing over her, as she scavenged around on her knees, mechanically flipping over carcasses, exposed ribcages, pelvic bones and other sets of ossicles, searching for something specific; this seemed like a ritual she did often.

Magic. She was searching for magic. To drain from these dead bodies. To _eat_.

"Please go away," came an murmured plea—void of feeling. "Leave my head, leave my head," she chanted under her breath. She did not think they were real. She thought she was _imagining_ them.

With a contained breath, Scorpius watched. Potter was now kneeling down in front of her, so that the pair were level face to face. He placed two hands on her bony shoulders—

Her face etched in disturbing alarm at the sudden contact.

"It's me," Potter murmured, in possibly his softest voice ever. "Look at me—Look at my eyes, Rose. It's _me_. "

She _was_ looking at him. But there was no recognition. There was something else. A dark, frightened— _frightful_ thing. She then glanced sharply up at Scorpius.

"No..." came a quivering denial.

Something was about to go very wrong. The hairs on the back of his neck were already raising. He needed to tell Potter to back away—her bloodshot eyes were filling with hurt, with _wrath_ , the blistered lip was curling to a sneer, the small fists were tightening and—

"Move!" Scorpius snapped, and Potter's eyes widened. Feet dodged backwards in just the nick of time as a fiery, vociferous stream of magic shot out the steam of her adeptly-raised wand— _nearly_ slicing off their heads.

His heartbeat trilled like a set of dragonfly-wings.

She'd nearly _killed_ them.

She wasn't done yet. On her feet now, she stared them down—stared _Potter_ down. There was so much heartbreak— _hatred_ in her eyes.

Her wand rose again.

"Rose Pos—" Potter tried.

A furious expulsion of magic shot, a huge ball of varicolored lightning belching outward, spreading forcefully in his direction.

Potter acted in split-second swiftness. Summoning a large glowing shield around the pair of them, he held his own against the teeming force. Fiery specks of wind flit at them from the ends. A pained groan released from Potter's mouth; his feet had begun to skid—the shield was already cracking. What the hell?

"Hide, Scorp!" he ordered.

Scorpius was quick to evacuate—he did _not_ want to be collateral—hastily ducking behind a large boulder-like construction. Drawing deeps breaths, he kept his face bent in his hands, trying to steady his racing heartrate. Rose was homicidal; His nightmare seemed to be coming to fruition.

When he finally mustered the nerve to peer from the side, the cousins were locked in duel stances, viciously circling each other.

Potter had his arm pointed in sleek threat. But his brow was etched, discomfort all too evident on his face.

Rose, bony limbs sprawled, looked more relaxed. There was something keenly animalistic to her—like she was ready to jump at him with a knife. There was a crudeness, an unrestrained quality to her.

The prospect of bringing _this_ Rose back into their world ran a trill of horror up Scorpius' spine.

Dueling came implicit to the cousins—Since school, since _before_ school—they pulled wands on each other without remorse. On their darkest days, the blond had distantly wondered if murder was imminent. A looming eventuality. When he was younger, he'd feared Potter may kill his cousin someday—the boy used offensive magic in unimaginably cruel ways. Relying on shields and counter-jinxes, Rose had always been more of a defensive fighter.

And now.

Potter couldn't bring himself to cast a single offensive spell. Meanwhile, Rose was trying to _kill_.

"How're you holding up!" Scorpius hollered, throwing a healing charm, nipping the flowering bruise on Potter's torn knee just as he skid against the ground for the seventh time.

Grunting in pain, the boy stared wearily, not understanding why he was getting his arse beaten so badly. Within seconds, the confusion was discarded. The eyes sharpened onto his target again.

Didn't matter. He'd taken too long.

Another explosive hex was already streaming through the open air.

"Rosie's angry." He gave a a pained groan as it nearly tore past his blue shield and smacked him against his chest. The momentum knocked him flat on his arse. "Really angry," he wheezed out.

Scorpius, from the safety of his boulder-like construction, very much appreciated in that moment the fact that he was _not_ Potter.

"Bloody hell—just apologize to her!"

"For _what?"_ Potter hissed, panting heavily. "I haven't _done_ any—" Another hex came and he tried to swerve out of the way but it knocked him off his feet. He landed against a boulder with a groan.

"You did something," Scorpius uttered under his breath. "Just too much of a bastard to remember."

Potter didnt hear him. In her unadulterated rage, the girl was now throwing sharp stalictites composed of magic, dodging which required all his focus. They jabbed through the air, flying at him with startling velocity. In a moment of quick thinking, Potter cast volumous shields to all the correct positions, mechanically slashing through the raging purple light-forms.

When it worked, Potter nearly threw an impulsive smirk. Bastard.

Her small mouth was now etching in anger. Uttering a fierce _bombarda maxima,_ she threw him backwards with a sudden surge of wind, landing him in a pile of broken skulls.

He lifted himself, steadied his vision, attempted to gain footing.

It didn't matter. Apparently tired with playing around, she was now running away into the nearby grotto— _cavern_. It must've been her home. Her skinny limbs moved so rapidly she looked like a scampering animal from a distance.

Potter stared at her receding figure, panting hard. He looked vaguely heartbroken.

Scorpius at last surfaced from his hiding place. A quick dash was made to Potter. He sat him on the ground to do quick work of his wounds.

"Her magic has been enhanced preternaturally," the boy grumbled, still panting hard. There was an obvious twinge of jealousy in his voice. "Her offensive casting has _never_ been that strong—I can't get a foothold on the situation."

Was it a byproduct of feeding on magic? It surely had to be. Potter had never before lost a duel to his cousin. But Potter had also suffered a gruesome injury that impeded his abilities in the past year. Meanwhile, eating magic was turning Rose into some freak wizard.

"So what's the plan?" Scorpius said anxiously.

Deep in thought, Potter stared toward the cavern-like construction.

"She's uncooperative," he said curtly. "I'm going to knock her unconscious so we can haul her back across the Veil."

Scorpius blinked.

"No—no—Fucking hell, what's _wrong_ with you? That's our fucking girl, mate. That's our _Rose_."

No response.

"Go in there and bloody _talk_ to her."

Potter's shoulders sunk with exhaustion.

"Not sure how to..." He trailed off awkwardly, and blinked. "You go."

Scorpius eyes etched, well aware he was nearly—nearly, not _quite_ —just as bad with female emotions.

"I'm not getting eaten," he said. "Whatever she's pissed about—it's, thankfully, directed at _you."_

Potter looked perplexed, as if he was in the middle of solving the hardest algorithm in the world.

"Go calm her down like a _decent person_...Mention how much Hugo misses her...Keep saying Hugo's name," Scorpius advised. He believed that Hugo was the one person Rose would never, _ever_ eat.

"...And when you're _certain_ she won't eat me— _then_ I'll come join," he finished, giving Potter an anxious shove forward as the boy rose to his feet. "Get in there; I'm setting up the Portkey right now." Scorpius, more than anything, was eager to cop the fuck out of there as soon as possible.

Potter's head twisted around to glare, before another sort of discomfort took his eyes.

"Splitting up is dangerous," he stated the obvious.

"Make it quick then." Scorpius was already dumping out his bag, frantically assembling all the necessary parts for their escape route—his pulse pounded though his body—he was feeling feverish—The darkness of the abyss was getting to him, closing in around his mind—he just wanted to leave as fast as _possible_.

Potter gave a wary look.

"Keep the commlink on then," he instructed. "And if anything happens...Tell Scamander to pull you out—I'll make the run back."

Scorpius' shoulders winced in abrupt pain; Not this again.

He glared up at the boy.

"No chance," he said coldly. "Making the run is too dangerous."

"I'll make it," Potter replied, as coldly.

"You _won't_. Especially if you're hauling Weasley too."

His eyes etched with a stern air. "Doesn't matter; The Stone is the priority."

"Then you take It!" Scorpius barked back, furious now. "Why give it to _me_?"

An awkward pause.

Scorpius scowled at his refusal to answer.

"My arse can handle not being babysat for a few minutes—Go fucking finish this!" he snapped.

With a terse, frustrated glower, Potter finally spun around. Narrowing his eyes, Scorpius shot daggers onto the boy's back, watching him stalk into the cavern with that fierce, commanding air, the fingers on his prosthetic gripped tight.

"Arrogant git," Scorpius uttered under his breath, still furious, turning back to his assembly.

Screwing around with the cap of a potion before yanking it off, he poured the brew into the head of a bucket—their Portkey—and uttered the appropriate spell. So fixated with the construction, he seemed hardly aware of a looming presence in the darkness, until it was standing right over of him.

"Another Malfoy?" inquired the smooth, baritone voice. "Your lineage has not died off without me?"

Eyes shot up, blinking as he met a surreptitiously gleaming smile that he had never thought he'd be seeing in his lifetime. His mouth fell open in incredulous horror.

Holy... _shit_.

This really _was_ hell.

X

X

X

Hallucinations were haunting her again. She'd been having them for some time now. They kept coming back; there was no break, no _reprieve_ for her mind...She had to find Tom; he would make them disappear. Tom always knew how to make her feel better.

It— _he_ —was following her.

"Go away!" she shrieked, tossing a furious hex behind as she cut into a tunnel. Something wrapped her waist, yanking her back, and then she was facing it— _him_.

Her frail heart quivered inside her chest. This was the most realistic rendition yet. It looked so much like him. That body, those shoulders, that face, that jaw, those lips, those _eyes_. It made her knees quake. Her anger rose; the hideous feelings that hunger and loneliness could stir. How _hideous_ these hallucinations made her feel.

"Leave me alone!" she spat harshly, from blackened, bruised eyes. Tears were forming. She shoved at the hallucination, trailing away. "Leave me in peace!"

Something had grabbed her waist yet again; this time it wasn't a spell, it was a hand, a human hand. It spun her around and then she was pressed up against the wall.

"What's wrong with you?!" It— _he_ —snapped at her, those green eyes drilling painfully though her. "Stop leaving—look at me— _look_ at me."

Misery flooded her veins; Even the voice was just like his. She stared stubbornly at the floor.

A hand grasped her jaw, forcing her stare—the sudden, warm touch ran a jolt though her chest, and then she was staring into his flushed face. He looked so warmly, familiarly handsome. It made her feel hungry. It made her feel ugly.

She summoned her anger.

"I'm _tired_ of being punished," she seethed miserably. "Fuck. _Off_."

His brow etched. "Who's punishing you?"

"My _mind_ ," she snarled, bony limbs rattling, shoving against his ironclad hold. "Now leave me alone—I'm _hungry_ —I need to _eat_." Tom had said to keep eating.

The perplexed eyes became sharp, surveying her. Flitting across her face. Processing all these statements.

Something lit inside them.

"I'm hungry too," he murmured hoarsely, drawing closer. "Been starved for a year."

Larger hands grabbed her small, eager-to-punch fists, and with a sly gleam in eyes, he held them against the wall.

"Get away from me or I'll _eat_ you," she gave her most threatening snarl as his face neared.

His mouth leant in and whispered— _teased_ , "Eat me," and began to trail open-mouthed kisses from her chin down to her neck. She hissed at the sudden contact—It was so tender and warm—She yanked her arms, trying to fight out of his grip. With an eye-roll, he released them. Now keeping her chin tilted upwards with his palm, he imbibed her neck with slow, languorous kisses. It made her tremble.

With her newly-released hands, she grasped at the sharp cheeks of his face and fiercely yanked his warm mouth to hers...He took eagerly to kissing her mouth…He tasted like strawberry sugar, like _magic_. He tasted powerful, like Tom. The warmth made it _better_.

She wanted to eat him.

Her mouth desperately clung to his. As he attempted to pull away for air, "More," she gasped in near-pain, her arms twisting around his neck and forcibly yanking him.

He fell into her and gave an abrupt laugh. His arm—so _warm_ —wrapped possessively around her back and the other one came at her nape to keep her face pressed to his. He was hungry too. How was he so warm?

"Better yet?" came the sly murmur at her lips. Her fingers, just as hungry, rummaged his hair with avid fascination, savoring the softness. It had been too long since she'd felt something so human. At her touch, he gave a low, shuddering groan. "Missed my Rose Pose," His breath warmed her skin and coiled heat in her stomach, making her exhale hard— _pant_. He kissed bruisingly along her jaw before returning to her mouth to press an aching kiss. "So, _so_ much."

Rose Pose. The words pricked a wound. A hurt. A _rage_.

Her hands gripped his shoulders, fingers tightening.

With one swift blow of effort, she violently _hurled_ him off.

Staggering back, he stood. Disheveled. Perplexed. Still vaguely flushed.

He stared.

"I didn't miss you," she barked harshly, tears streaming from her eyes. Her wand now pointed at his face. She had to say it; He wasn't real. She couldn't let some stupid hallucination win, no matter how convincing.

He watched her for a pained, crestfallen second, before lunging at her again. Gripping her face by the jaw, he forced her gaze onto his. For a few seconds he stared at her steadily, _into_ her, with that demanding, sociopathic intensity she knew him to have, before meshing their mouths together again. Teeth clashed and they were kissing with fervor, and she was panting in ache, in desperation, her tongue slaving over his teeth ...She wanted more, more, _more_ —but she couldn't have more. She'd never have more. She'd never have anything she wanted.

Misery flooded every bone in her body. She felt wretched. Ugly, miserable, ruined, wretched.

The _burning_ hatred for the Creature surfaced again. Consumed by rage, she delivered another swift shove to the hallucination.

Feet staggered but he swiftly recovered composure, landing in his combative stance out of instinct. He stared unblinkingly, looking annoyed now.

"Again?" he said dryly.

"You're not real," she hissed, tears in eyes. Her arm, holding her wand lethally pointed, was trembling. "I saw you get killed—I saw you get ripped to fucking _shreds_."

He observed her in wary silence.

"I crossed the Veil," he said at last.

"You crossed the _Veil_?"

His face contorted with offense.

"You said you'd do it for me, didn't you?" he snapped, infuriated by her incredulous tone.

"You crossed the boundaries of Life and Death—it's _senile_."

Annoyance permeated his face.

"It's only fair," he said stiffly.

"Fair," she echoed and gave a hoarse, pained laugh. "All because it's fair."

A curt nod followed. He watched her, with caution, searching for a foothold into the conversation.

"I owe you." He stated like it was an irrefutable fact.

She whimpered, shaking her head in stern, frantic refusal. Terrible explanation—Only an idiot would cross the Veil for another idiot. Too many risks, too much danger. It was opening a passageway for the Creature into the world—even she, through the shrouded delusions plaguing her mind, saw that. How could Scamander have _allowed_ this?

Albus watched her. The hardness of his face waned, became hurt, became imploring. The brows knit. The eyes became afflicted with pain.

"You've protected me...Always, since we were kids...You even said you loved me...I owe you," he said.

Some sort of recognition snapped in her mind.

"You don't..." she croaked weakly, before trailing off. "That's _stupid_ —You don't owe me for _any of that,"_ she seethed in anger, fists tightening.

He moved closer, shoulders relaxing though she remained hostile. His features looked bruised against the soft glow of his wand light. In the faint visibility he was as worn and damaged as her—she wanted to heal him somehow. It was an odd, nurturing impulse that surged from the depths of a brutalized mind. She swallowed it with a flinch.

He reached and she yelped—with split-second reflex he had gripped her hands so she couldn't hit him again.

"Let's go home Rose," he said, reassuringly squeezing her bony wrists between his fingers. "I'll fix this."

A hoarse, bruised whimper left her throat. Her eyes darkened. She fiercely rattled her head, infuriated at the assumption. How could anything be _fixed_. There was _too much._ Too many broken parts. Her mind was broken. Her body was broken. The future held no hope; The Creature was too big to kill. Everything she— _they_ —did only seemed to break the world more. She had to **_stop_** breaking things.

She wanted to kill the Creature and then she wanted to die. This was her new prerogative. This was _all_ she wanted.

"There's no home," she croaked bitterly, backing away from the wand light, feeling hideously small and obscure. Like a filthy rodent. Tom, good clean beautiful Tom, had helped her realize that she too was a deformed monster, like the Creature. And rodent-monsters did not have homes. She hadn't had a home since her parents, only _real_ caretakers, died. Home implied safety and comfort and these things _did not_ exist for her.

Albus' brow tensed. He stared at her face, reading all the volatile emotions on it. The _rage_. He, better than _anyone_ , knew the need for violence, for _vengeance_ ; there was a certain type of relief that could only be found in brutality. He, like her, knew pain. His father—the cruel, sick _bastard_ —had stolen any semblance of a home from Albus _years_ ago.

He neared once more. His hands ran along her face, along her hair, pulling the ugly, greasy strands away. "We'll make a new one," he promised quietly, leaning in to press an excruciatingly adoring kiss at her dirtied, bloodied forehead. "Go far away; wherever you want. You and me...And Sco—Hugo of course."

Rose stared weakly.

At the mention of _Hugo_ , a searing ache had been woken. Tom, sensible Tom, had told her to forget that name. Hearing it, out loud, peeled the scab off an old, buried wound. Fresh tears emerged. She'd abandoned Hugo all alone in the world, trapped in a twelve-year old's body. Her greatest love. Her greatest failure.

"How is Hugo," the wretched sob escaped her throat.

Bright green observed her crumpling expression with caution—her psyche was faltering—it couldn't hold itself together when confronted with _Hugo._

Realization flickered in his irises.

"Hugo misses you," he answered, the corner of his mouth curling to a barely-there smile. "He's waiting. Told me to bring you back or not bother coming back at all—Utterly ruthless, your brother—No clue where he picked it up—We _can't_ disappoint him, Rose."

That seemed to do it. Unwittingly her head fell against his chest in sobbing defeat. At least for now, she was exhausted from fighting with invisible things.

"I thought you were dead," she croaked absently, unaware she was thinking out loud, tears streaming down her face. "Doesn't make sense...I watched you die..."

His palms clasped her face, bringing her gaze to his.

"Death's not keeping me from you," he murmured wryly, and leant his head down to kiss her again.

X

 **Let me know what you're** **thinking. Reviews keep the muse running**!

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 **To cosmiclove who asked** ** _my_** **thoughts on the feelings between Rose and Al being due to circumstance (shared grief and pain).** **That is my interpretation too. Them being similarly isolated, similarly brilliant, similarly ruthless in their ideals, and enduring a traumatizing chain of events that forces them abnormally close, makes it difficult for them to have intimate relations with other people. In a normal reality, it would never happen. Clash is all about exploring those dark realities ;)**


	48. Escape pt 1

Lust saturated her thoughts. It blurred with hunger under the pressure of starvation. Needs, desires coalesced—and her cousin was a brilliant wizard; He was Magic Incarnate. The familiar, self-loathing ache settled in her stomach... She was getting hungry again.

She wanted to devour him.

"We have to go." His voice was a hoarse pant, mouth against hers. She yanked at his neck with her arms, keeping him pressed close, imbibing the sugary-addictive taste from his lips. He traced one last kiss—hot, searing, _aching_ —along her mouth, and she gasped out in near-anger when he pulled away.

"Don't—"

"Scorp's waiting."

His body's wrapping warmth vanished and her bones shivered in frail disappointment. Her fists tightened. Bright green eyes stared, perplexed, trying to decipher the anger overtaking her sullen features. He still looked disheveled, _boyish_ , in the faint spell light. He was flushed. It was odd seeing Albus vulnerable. Frozen and armored was how she knew him; She didn't think he was capable of... _normal_.

The next moment passed in a blurring haze of movement. Hunger burned sharp in her belly, consumed her emotions; No attention was paid to where she was being dragged. Hand gripped, he was yanking her out of the cavern. Bony limbs wobbled in the wake of his fast-paced strides, deftly weaving their way through chilling darkness, finally coming to halt in front of—

An unfinished Portkey.

Panting, she stared down at it, in hollow fatigue.

Albus expelled a sharp breath, bending to his knees, drawing agitated fingers through the front of his hair. "Give me a minute." He inspected the scattered remains, the empty potion bottles—a tipped-over bucket; He was mentally rummaging through every possible scenario to cause Scorp's sudden disappearance.

But it wasn't like Scorpius had wandered off to take a piss. All the scenarios were terrible. Rising to his feet, he pressed at the commlink attached to his ear. "Scamander; pull Malfoy out now," he ordered. "Start closing the passageway— Rose and I will make the run."

He stood, awaiting the response, warily glancing over at her.

She stared back in numb weariness.

His scowl deepened. "Scamander; Are you there?" he gritted his teeth. " _Answer me_."

No response. No response was coming.

"How could you bring Scorp?" she said quietly. She and Al...they were _made_ to handle danger, brutality. Life had been one terror after another. It was what they knew best.

But Scorpius was _not_ like them.

And more importantly, he did not _need_ to be.

Al's eyes, gloomy with exhausted circles, further darkened.

"It's not as if I dragged him—He wanted to come," he said bitterly.

A sharp trill of rage went through her. This response was inadequate, childish and ignorant. Al had not acertained all the risks like he was supposed to. She wanted to shake him. Some part of her—the violent, ugly place from where the hunger surfaced—wanted to _strangle_ him. She wanted to—

Scorpius had no business being here; he had no business dying for _either_ of them.

"But you knew the danger; Didn't you?" she accused sharply, fists tightening. "And you _let_ him come."

Albus stared, bewildered at her anger. He looked like he'd been kicked in the stomach. She didn't care; He was meant to be _better_ than this. What was the point of being a proper genius? She continually glared at him through her own blackened eyes.

Processing the fury shrouding her worn, gaunt features, he reached over and gave her hand a quick, reassuring squeeze—"I'll fix it"—But he was speaking more to himself than to her. "I'll fix it right now."

He aimed a spell. A large burst of light shot straight upwards, bursting in the dark heavens. The wave of light momentarily illuminated the gaseous clouds of debris that hovered in the sky space—this place was a wasteland in every sense of the word.

Her bony knees trembled; the light would attract _everything_.

"What are you—"

"Just trust me," he instructed, grasping her hand and tugging her close so that they were shoulder to shoulder. "Scamander; pull him _out_ ," he hissed into his commlink again.

More abject silence.

Her eyes trembled as the abyss surged at the flash—signal—he had sent. It had woken the monsters. A rush of wind came; something was flying— _soaring_ toward them. Albus gripped her hand and cast a gargantuan shield. Sparks flew as something collided against the surface and the impact burned and she screamed out in pain. She dropped Al's tense hand, gripped her wand instead, and expelled a bright flash of yellow—

The beast shot backwards—skidding across the ground—rolling—tumbling—slipping—sliding—slewing— _lithering_ —It landed in two clean pieces. Head and body. Efficiently, proficiently dead.

Albus stared at it, then back at her, like his mouth was dry. The emotion hung between envy and fascination. It was mostly envy—Didn't matter that she'd just saved their lives; He couldn't _handle_ her being better at killing than him.

"You'll show me how to do that later," he said, squeezing at her hand. Bringing it to his mouth, he gave her fingers a quick, appreciative kiss.

"You better hope we _all_ make it out alive," she barked, to reorient him back into the situation. Hardness had taken her voice, her being. How could he put _Scorp_ in danger like this? Scorp, so loyal, so caring, who thought Albus his _best friend_ , even in the face of her cousin's lifelong arseholery.

Albus watched her with stern, miserable eyes. But he nodded; his throat gave a painful swallow. He was getting anxious. He had played this mission reckless and he knew it.

Another light cleaved through the sky space, identical to his.

A signal.

It was Scorpius. He was out there.

"Let's move," Al said tersely, yanking her forward.

They ran fast, weapons raised. There was nothing decipherable to mark their path, no lakes or trees or landmarks. The only thing that hung was a blanket of omnipresent darkness, shrouding the senses. In the beginning, the lack of light had bothered her, but now it became a normal fixture of life. Like the other skulking monsters, she could snuff out her location, though rarely did she wander too far from her cavern…and if ever she got lost, Tom usually came to her rescue.

Feet came to halt.

"Tom?" she said.

Albus turned, sharpness taking hold of his shoulders.

"You're still calling him that?" he noted icily

She coldly ignored the resentment in his voice, that clear betrayal he felt.

Her gaze focused, past Albus, onto Scorpius, who hung precariously from the former Dark Lord's invisible grasp.

Tom's eyes flickered toward them.

"My pet." He shot a good-natured smile, ignoring her companion completely. "How are you feeling? Are you hungry?

It was impossible to know what pissed off Albus more, the fact that Lord Voldemort had his best mate _dead to arms_ or the fact he had just called her _pet_...That prosthetic arm rose faster than she'd ever seen.

"Put the Malfoy down," he commanded.

Tom, turning back to the trembling Scorpius, surveyed him with a bored curiosity.

"You do know that all previous Malfoys have belonged to me?" he noted with a casual air. "They have a tradition of swearing loyalty to me—it is the secret to their...continued existence. Malfoys are not especially clever but they have always understood the pull of power."

He stared at Scorpius pleasantly, in expectation, as if awaiting the pleas and groveling he had received from preceding Malfoys. The blond furiously rattled his head. "Fuck off," he managed to squeak out.

Tom frowned in disappointment. "This generation is too insolent for my liking," he muttered with a rueful sigh. "The world is so depraved now...Were it not so tedious, I think I would kill you all...How long it's been since I have killed children..."

"Put the Malfoy _down_ ," Albus repeated curtly, with a lethal gleam in his eyes. "This one is _mine_. And if you damage one hair on his head...I will _kill_ you."

Scorpius, trembling, hanging mid-air by the collar, was too terrified to be offended—or even flattered—by this claim of ownership and the threat made on his behalf.

Unaffected, Tom glanced at Albus with more wry amusement, before turning to her.

His smile grew teeth.

"Rose, my dearest; Are you aware that magic drawn from a live target tastes better than a corpse?" Eyes flickering back to his prey, feral now, pupils elongated to blood-red slits. "Would you like to try out this insolent little specimen I have found?"

Mouth falling open, Scorpius looked on the verge of passing out.

Albus' hand gripped hers almost painfully tight—like a jealous boyfriend. Annoyed, she yanked it out.

"No thank you," she said politely, drawing closer with caution, not breaking gaze with Lord Voldemort. "He's my friend. Tom— _please_ put him down."

He would listen. She knew he would. He was depending on her to Resurrect him down the road. That had been their deal. He would stay on amiable terms.

As expected, Scorpius dropped to the floor within seconds. Albus cast a quick shield over him as he hastily staggered next to the boy. Albus kept a hand on Scorp's shoulder, possessive, protective—Again, like a jealous boyfriend—while his prosthetic fingers remained pointed at Tom, ready to hurl a hex in a split-second. His body assumed its combative stance; His stare became dark, brutally focused—Albus was ready for the duel of his life against Dark Lord Voldemort.

"I see you made a friend in hell," Scorpius panted, glaring over at her.

She ignored this.

"Thank you," she whispered, not breaking eye contact with Tom.

The former Dark Lord nodded benevolently.

"Do you see the effect of manners, Albus Severus?" he then intoned boredly, so clearly unthreatened by the boy. "Rose, command him to show me common courtesy. I deserve it. I am, after all, his predecessor…He would not exist were it not for my success."

"Albus; Stand _down_ ," she gritted out.

Her cousin, the stupid stubborn bastard, did _not_.

She reached over and forcibly yanked the prosthetic arm down. He glared at her in betrayal. She glared back, giving an exasperated look, as if to say: _Let me handle this._

The _last_ thing he needed was to pick this fight…Tom was more useful as a friend than a foe. It wouldn't even be a fair fight. Tom was over a hundred years old, while Albus was in his early twenties…and acted it.

Reluctantly, still glaring, her cousin lowered his arm.

Tom watched with smug enjoyment.

"I'm surprised to see you're still alive, by the way," he said conversationally to Albus. "I expect it is the handiwork of your sentimental father—and the Stone."

"Obvious deduction," Albus droned, his voice lacking all interest in engaging Voldemort banter-wise now that he couldn't have his duel. "Too slow—I'm not impressed."

Tom glared so cruelly it made her wince. Then the expression became controlled and pleasant again.

"My… _deepest_ apologies," he sighed, with a theatrical air of discontent. He strode over in his brisk manner, casting a look of elaborate, nearly comical disdain at their surroundings. "A shame...This place is polluted with death that is not even _my_ doing. It is deafening to the senses...I have been _so_ bored. But it is good that I have had Rose Pose to provide me with...stimulation, isn't it?"

Albus, mouth scowling, eyes predatory, looked on the verge of hurling a Killing Curse.

"Tom," she interrupted, realizing nothing useful was going to come from this conversation. "My friends have come to take me back to the Living realm."

Tom's eyes, for the first time in a while, gleamed with a ravenous excitement. This was a favorable proposition for him too.

"Have they?" he purred. "What excellent news, pet—So I shall meet you on the Other Side?"

She nodded cautiously.

"I'll see you soon," she promised.

Both Albus and Scorpius turned their heads to stare at her with incredulous alarm. Albus maintained the additional betrayed edge.

She ignored them.

"And you won't forget to eat?" Tom inquired politely. He sounded so charming, so likable, so sincere; So perfectly, beautifully convincing.

She gave a measured headshake.

Tom smiled approvingly. "Good girl."

In a flash he was gone.

Drawing a deep sigh of relief, she turned to find both boys still watching her. Albus was staring in gloomy expectation, awaiting an explanation, while Scorpius was clutching at the sides of his hair, with a dazed confused look, as if he were lost in a hellish nightmare—that now included Lord Voldemort—which he just wanted to _fucking_ _wake up from_.

"He's a ghost so..." she cleared her throat. "He can...move through the realms more easily," she finished in explanation.

Scorpius blinked in terror, looking on the verge of a breakdown. This was not the explanation he had required.

"How the hell does someone find— _befriend_ _Voldemort_ ," he wheezed. "I mean—How does this even _happen—"_

Albus shot a reproachful glance, commanding him quiet, before turning to her.

"Riddle's using you." He said this like he was telling her a novel fact.

She stared dully.

"Everybody uses me," she stated. All the time festering in isolation, one fact had become clear—That she had been born to be _used_.

Her parents had raised her clever so she'd prove useful to Harry's—failed—plan for Albus.

The Head had weaponized her for his own agenda.

And the Creature...He had violated her in the worst way one can violate a girl.

Her life had never really been hers. So what did it really matter if Lord Voldemort was also _using_ her?

"Tom's kept me alive," she said sharply.

Albus stared in an all-pervading way that was meant to assert his control over the situation—it didn't work.

"Riddle doesn't come near you again," he decreed. "I'll kill him if he tries."

"There's no way to kill a ghost," she sighed, poking the obvious hole in his silly threat.

Albus scowled. "I'll make one," was all he said.

"We can talk about this later." She just wanted to placate the tension now. Tom wasn't the enemy. Tom was on their side. The Creature was the one that had to be killed.

The sharpness in Albus' eyes dropped. He extended out a hand, beckoning her to take it.

When she stared down at it hollowly, an offended scowl crossed his face.

"Let's just get out of here," she murmured, shouldering past him.

Insufficient answer.

His hands gripped her waist and in an instant, her weight was plopped—gently— down upon a stone. Both boys were bent at knee in front of her, watching her face expectantly.

"So... How do you feel?" Scorpius spoke first, with a cautious, nervous grin.

She stared back with numb, blackened eyes, searching for an emotion within herself. Only one existed.

"Hungry," she admitted hoarsely.

Scorpius shot an alarmed look at Albus, who was still watching her with an undeterred expression.

"Rose..." he began. "What are you thinking? We need to know. We have a right to—we've crossed the Veil for you."

Her tense shoulders sunk in defeat. Tears glistened in her eyes.

"I didn't ask anyone to," she croaked bitterly. "Leave me here if I frighten you."

Scorpius, terrified, seemed to look reasonably convinced, but at a sharp nudge delivered by Albus, quickly disguised it.

"Nonsense," he said, smiling weakly. "Can't leave our girl behind; Right Potter?"

Albus' fingers squeezed at her bony knee. He was watching her with a carefully composed air. Like he could read all her emotions—her _anger_ —on her face.

"We're on the same side," he said quietly, in assurance.

Emotion welled in her throat; she kept it contained.

"You trust us?" Albus inquired, his voice soft, his eyes processing this slight shift in her demeanor. "Trust us not to harm you—or use you."

She gave a fragile nod.

"Good. Because we trust you too; Right Malfoy?"

Scorpius nodded a little too anxiously, like he was trying to convince himself as much aa her. "Don't eat me Rose," he gave a tight, little laugh.

Her brow furrowed. "Of course not." The idea was absurd.

The boys exchanged one short, meaningful glance—a quick message indecipherable to her...She felt sorely excluded, like the third wheel to their well-oiled machine.

Then both sets of eyes returned to her.

Her body slunk back, heart shuddering at the intensity. She'd grown unaccustomed to staring. Tom never stared. It made her self-concious, buried under scrutiny. They looked—unkempt, bloodied—but there was a pleasant human quality; The flush of sunny days on their faces...She, on the other hand, was a squalid pile of rags and bones. Filthy, miserable, depraved, _ugly..._ She was certain she smelled too.

But Albus was already leaning in to brush her dirty cheek with his lips, and wrap her in a warm, full body embrace. Letting her know that all the barriers that'd existed between them when they were younger—they were _all_ gone. He no longer cared.

And Scorpius. He had changed too. He sat at a purposeful distance, tentatively squeezing at her bony hand in reassurance, smiling at her with kind—though cautious, oh so cautious—eyes.

And it was so plain to see.

He did not trust her _at all_.

X

X

X

The darkness began to worry her again—because of her friends. Her imagination supplied many beasts with fantastical jaws to lurk beyond the range of her vision. Though, by now, she'd learned to embrace it, as the perpetual night provided cover from the flesh and blood monsters, the ones with their fangs and claws and protuding bellys...the fear was coming back.

But it wasn't the monsters that frightened her. It was what _made_ them monsters.

Scorpius sat at the farthest distance from her, around the small hearth-fire; It was a small flame that barely illuminated their faces or kept them warm; Fire never really took root in the dark dimension. She suspected some contamination lingered in the oxygen. The realm was always freezing and the air was polluted with some hallucinatory fume, a sinful sickness. It was getting to her, or perhaps it was getting to Scorp. She wasn't sure.

He sat, with the Portkey in lap, irritably tinkering away, rummaging anxious fingers through his bloodied hair every so often, muttering wretchedly to himself. "Need to get out...need to...leave..." he blearily repeated, shoulders and body sinking. He was growing tired. He wanted to sleep, but Albus warned against it.

Sitting at an evenly spaced distance between the two of them, Al's eyes flickered left and right, with a cautious air. While clearly fatigued, he sat alert with a stiff spine. He kept glancing at her, and his lips kept parting, like he wanted to say something but couldn't settle on what. There was an odd, pleasant flush to his features. He looked like wanted to move closer, so they could repeat what happened in the cavern—But he was trying not to isolate Scorp.

The blond was growing paranoid. What Tom had said about her _eating_ him—it had struck a painful chord. The fear had festered, and in the darkness, it had _grown_.

Rose, truthfully, had not done anything to make it better.

Albus glanced over at her, mouth twitching, beckoning for her to say _something_.

She didn't.

She felt catatonic. Or she felt outraged at having to justify herself. She wasn't certain. The one thing she _was_ certain of was that she was hungry. Starvation had been her only emotion for a while, and though it bled into others, the painful pangs did not go away.

The air grew heavy and humidity pressed down, suffocating. Blood rain started. Albus cast the quick umbrella charm over their heads just as Scorpius moaned in revulsion, shielding his face from stray drops. Rose said nothing, did nothing, because she felt nothing at all. It was a common enough occurence. The sound of this rain, was oddly soothing to her, because oftentimes it was the _only_ noise that existed in the realm—besides Tom's lovely, deep voice. And Rose yearned for noise. She needed it to drown out her delusional thoughts.

She watched as the blood hammered down in chaotic drops, the gusting wind carrying them in wild vortices one moment and in diagonal sheets the next. There was no twilight in the realm, but the rain swallowed them in such a blackness that they couldn't see even a foot out from their tiny huddled spot, let alone what lay in the distance. The rain brought stillness over the realm—it was the only time all the monsters stopped hunting. The only time she could sleep. The only time things were safe.

But it also made them unbearably cold. In such deprivation of light, skin was all the more sensitive to freezing. Their teeth had already begun to chatter. Scorpius drew his coat tighter onto himself, shivering. Without a word, Albus passed his to her, watching as she drew it on, huddling into herself, inhaling deeply to capture his warm scent of musk and cigarettes.

It—the familiarity—brought tears to her eyes, which she wiped away on the sleeves.

It also ran a sharp pang through her. Hunger? It had to be. Tom told her to eat whenever she got pangs.

There was an intense anxiety to the rain now, as if between the tumbling debris-cloud and the ground it was fearful of never reaching its destination. The harshness of it obliterated the glistening tendrils falling from the sky, turning it into a disorientated smoggy chaos. It continued to fall thickly, for an extended amount of time, that Rose had to wonder what level of massacre the Creature had orchestrated.

"He's been feeding a lot today," she mused under her breath.

Grasping her meaning, Scorpius winced. He burrowed his head, to work more frantically upon the Portkey. Albus watched her in curiosity:

"How often does this happen?"

"Don't know," she replied. She didn't really have a sense of time. "How long has it been in the Living Realm?"

"A year," Albus said, inching a bit closer, his eyes trailing along her mouth and jaw. He didn't move too close out of courtesy for Scorpius.

A year...why had it felt so much longer to her? That meant she was only twenty-two now. She felt a lot older. Like she must've been thirty. But the boys had barely aged, so they couldn't be lying.

"What's happened in the world?"

Scorpius, eyes waning shut, abruptly shook himself awake.

"Well, it's a lot more peaceful now," he mumbled tiredly. "Oh—Your old boss became the Minister."

She said nothing.

The news hit her hard, painful. The Head became the... _Minister_ , did he? Her teeth clenched, drawing rage. _Of course_ he would get what he wanted, after she was as good as _dead_. There was no doubt in her mind—He became the Minister _because of her._

He had used her—the Ressurectionist—for years. He was an abuser. And if she ever returned, she _would_ collect her dues.

"My father has built a shield with the Stone to keep the Creature out of England," Albus informed, in that soft voice he had been using with her lately.

"Smart," she murmured, staring hollowly at the small flames. "Glad to hear it."

She couldn't find it in herself to care about Uncle Harry's heroics. He was also an abuser, like the Head, like the Creature. These three men she hated most in the world. She also couldn't find it in herself to be happy about the state of England. She felt distant, apart from it. She felt like she'd been exiled to make everything better. And she already knew, that when she returned, she'd just be thrown back into political chaos. Her life was hell, had always been hell, would always be hell.

"Maybe I should leave England," she whispered, unaware she was thinking out loud.

Scorpius, irritably busy with the Portkey, didn't hear her or simply chose not to.

"Where do you want to go," Albus said quietly, leaning in. "We'll..." The sudden rush of the rain drowned the second half of his statement, but already warmth was rushing to her face; he assumed the _I_ meant _we._

"Somewhere with sun," she whispered, her voice frail to her own ears. "I want to feel sun on my skin again."

Albus smiled faintly.

Something rang in his ear, diverting his attention. "Scamander, I'm having some difficulty getting ..." he broke off, and gave a frustrated sigh, glancing darkly over at Scorp, who was irritably determining the correct portions of a brew for the Portkey.

"Line's completely dead," Albus grumbled.

"In all fairness we knew this was going to happen." Scorpius gave a bitter snort. "Nothing was going to go smoothly. It's all so...fucking experimental."

"Any luck with the Portkey?" Al said tersely.

The boy shook his head. "I'm so...tired," he yawned.

"No sleeping," Albus warned. "Not here."

Scorpius glared at him with weary eyes.

"I'll assemble it," Albus said, taking the bucket out of his lap. "I'm not skilled at Portkeys—But I'll see what I can do."

Scorpius had no problem relinquishing the task. He reached for his bag, pulled it into his lap, and took out a small vial filled with yellow fluid.

The second the bag opened, a smell wafted through the air. Rose was completely entranced.

Scorpius caught her staring.

"You want a Pepperup potion too, Weasley?"

"Sure," she lied.

He tossed one into her lap. He didn't hand it, because he didn't want to touch her; she didn't care. She emptied the vial and was unsurprised to find it did nothing. She kept staring at the bag...something was in it...something much more delicious ... _teeming_ with Magic.

Hunger panged painfully in her stomach. It had never been so poignant.

"Could I see your bag for a minute, Malfoy?"

Glancing up, Scorpius blinked in alarm. He looked anxiously over at Albus, for some sort of confirmation. Albus' face remained imperceptible. Neither a denial nor approval.

"Why don't you just tell me what you need and I'll get it for you?" Scorpius tried nervously.

"Food," she croaked.

Scorpius yanked out a plastic wrapped sandwich from the bag and hastily tossed it into her lap. She stared down at it for a second, before unwrapping and sniffing the contents. It smelled like...egg salad. Inoffensive. Unappealing. She did not want to eat it but still she took a bite, if only to appease Scorpius, who was watching her with a hovering air.

"Thanks—it's delicious," she lied, with an appreciative smile, swallowing hard.

The hunger was ever-present. Eating had been a constant obsession for so long now, she couldn't look at an animal or corpse and not wonder if it had a strain of magic, just to stave off the pains for a while. She couldn't scrub magic from her mind. She knew that people, in extreme conditions, often ate stuff that wasn't food, not caring if it killed them, only so that it ended the gnawing pain. There was something about starvation that robbed the spirit as well as the body, as if in such a state, the mind was unable to feel love at all. In the throes of severe malnourishment, all emotions that hindered the ability to survive were dampened. At least that was how it felt for her.

She was hungry, _so_ hungry.

"It's not going to work," Albus said.

Her eyes glanced up in alarm. Had he been reading her thoughts?

He frowned at her. "I meant the Portkey," he clarified, watching as her shoulders relaxed.

"So what do we do then, make the run back?" Scorpius laughed miserably. "With all those monsters out there."

"I can kill them," she offered quietly, wanting to make herself useful. "If that's the issue...I've been doing it for a year. They know not to mess with me."

Scorpius stared, eyes growing wide, terror flooding his sullen features.

"That's not the issue," Albus cut in, perhaps quickly. "We want to avoid bloodshed."

"More bloodshed," Scorpius mumbled. "There's already been quite a bit."

"Right. We want to avoid the..."

A silence fell. He didn't need to finish.

"Well, he comes after the blood rain," she informed hoarsely

Scorpius' face unfurled with grotesque fear.

"Have you...met him?" he said through a hushed whisper.

Rose gave a pained stare. And nodded.

"He's a _monster_." Her voice broke miserably. "I can't even describe..."

And she couldn't. She squeezed her eyes, drawing deep breaths, trying to banish the memories. When she opened them both Albus and Scorpius were looking at her, their faces mutilated in the light of the bleak hearth-fire.

Scorpius was staring in frail horror.

"So how do we get back?" he croaked, turning to Albus.

Albus scowled.

"We keep trying the Portkey," he said curtly.

A lull fell after that. Sleep was taking hold of Albus and Scorpius and there was no fighting it anymore. The blond fell first, his disheveled head lolling, faced away. The minute a soundly snore enamated through the small space, ensuring the boy was, indeed, out—Albus made his move to bridge their distance.

His arm wrapped her waist, and his mouth pressed hers. "We'll go somewhere sunny." He kissed her with such aching desperation it made her pant, _cling_. "I'll make it better," he said, trailing a wet kiss to her ear before returning to her mouth. "I'll fix the hunger."

She nodded. She knew they were going nowhere. They were escaping nothing. Nothing was getting better. The hunger was not going away. But the delusion, in this very second, tasted _amazing_.

She smiled weakly. "You should sleep too." Wrapping her arms around his neck, she stroked at his hair, and he instinctually leant into the touch, falling against her body. His chin rested on her shoulder.

He gave a fatigued nod. "Can't wait to be alone with you," he breathed, pressing a shivery kiss into the side of her neck that made her twitch. "Can't stop thinking about it—You make me so warm."

"Warm," she echoed bleakly.

She wondered if she was hallucinating—the Albus she knew would never say words like this. Would he? Wouldn't he call them stupid? An ugly strain of suspicion rose; She questioned her mind, since it had tendency to play tricks on her in the intense darkness. If so, this was her most heartbreaking delusion yet.

Abruptly, she untangled their bodies, untangled her hands from his hair, his arms from her waist. She scooted several feet away.

He stared.

"Don't look at me," she croaked, placing hands over her face. It was a pitiful action, meek and silly like a child, but she couldn't stand attention cast upon her hideous appearance. She wanted to disappear, to skitter away into the shadows like a disgusting roach. Tom said she was like a cockroach, for she was surprisingly difficult to kill off.

Albus maintained the stare. It was deliberate and unnervingly focused, like he was trying to solve a mathematical equation that continued to elude him. With a controlled slowness, he edged near, and with just as much ease, he peeled the hands off her face.

"Stop," she whimpered.

In crass defiance, he leant in to stare at her face, hovering against her lips. "Why," he said dryly,

"M'ugly," she confessed, as though it warranted a confession.

His eyes sharpened, drew to volatile slits.

"Who called you that. Did Riddle say that?" he demanded quietly.

"No—"

"I'll kill him." He palmed the sides of her face. "I'll kill anyone who says that." Holding her steady, he leant in to kiss her hard, long _, yearning._

At least this was an Albus she understood: who proposed murder as if it were the solution to everything. It took mere seconds, though, before the anger vanished, and they were wrapped in each other's arms again, and then she was sobbing into his shoulder, and he was kissing achingly, adoringly, at her neck, mouth, and face, as if determined to convince her that he was real, that this was real and true and possible and no hallucination. He rubbed circles at her back until she had calmed down.

"What do you miss the most?" he asked, as her sniffles finally stopped.

She missed lots of things. She missed, above all, Hugo. Then she missed hot showers, grass under her feet, rain that wasn't polluted with blood, smells that weren't blood, colors in the sky, clean clothes...clean undergarments, pathetically enough.

"I miss sleeping on a bed," she croaked.

"You'll love mine."

Green eyes glanced at hers, first in caution, gauging her reaction. Though he was partly smirking. Making his intentions so boldly transparent.

A rush of heat tingled her face. "What will I love about it?"

"Soft. Warm. Me. You," he whispered, imprinting more kisses into her neck that made her shiver. "Wrapped up together all night," he breathed openly against her skin. Her entire face was burning hot. He was bold, so seductive...He'd finally made peace with the boggart.

She closed her weary eyes, clinging to his neck, letting herself get lost in the fantasy presented to her, even if that was all it would ever be.

Malfoy stirred a bit and they both drew apart. Albus returned to his spot, and the pleasant heat surrounding her vanished. She observed sullenly at their distance as he fidgeted around with the Portkey to no avail, before giving a heavy sigh of defeat, and at last succumbed to sleep. He adjusted to lay on the floor; she gestured him over, trying to say _put your head in my lap_ , but he frowned. His eyes flickered toward Scorpius—conveying that it would be a sharp betrayal.

A delicate peace existed, and it was necessary to maintain balance between them three. Scorpius waking up to the cousins wrapped up together would be nightmarish for him—Al didn't want to offend these sensibilities. It was the first time she'd seen her cousin actively work _against_ being an arsehole.

She smiled bitterly, wondering if that made _her_ the arsehole now. They had all switched their childhood roles. She was no longer Al's sister. But Scorp was now, so very clearly, his _brother_.

She watched them sleep from afar, their chests rising and falling at different cadences, before turning her attention to the rain. It was waning but the scent of blood lingered, dark and heady. A stillness had fallen. With silence came a low crackle of thunder, rolling across the dimension to the pattering of new raindrops. For another moment, everything stopped again. Even the wind held its breath. A streak of hot silver split the sky, and the downpour began again, growling, ominous dark clouds gathering above, looming over them.

The Creature was having a feast. Rose, her stomach gnawing, felt sorely jealous.

"We're fucked," came a murmur.

Scorpius was up now, sitting with his head buried in hands. It took her a moment to realize he was quietly sobbing.

Rose just stared stonily.

"We're dead and we're gonna destroy Magic too," he grunted out. "We've majorly ruined everything. We're fucked, _fucked_."

She maintained her hollow stare. "We won't."

"Yeah?" He looked up. She was surprised to find that the flash of anger in his eyes was directed at _her_. "Tell me, Weasley—what have you been eating the entire _fucking_ time you've been here?"

She watched him tiredly.

He groaned into his hands again.

"What do you want me to say?" She gave a broken, bitter laugh.

"Promise me you won't feed on Magic when you get out of here," he demanded.

"Let's just focus on getting out first," she said defensively.

At her clear diversion of the topic, Scorp's face creased with a pained frustration. It may as well have been a _No_. He gave another weary groan.

"And on top of it all...Potter's gone all fucking... _soft_..." he grumbled, head bent, rubbing his fingers at his brow. "I'm going to die in hell for two idiots...Fuck me."

"You shouldn't have come."

"Shut the fuck up." His head snapped up. He glared at her through bloodshot eyes.

"Why did you then? I know you didn't do it for me," she bit back, now feeling properly riled.

His face drew to a Malfoy-ish sneer. "Isn't one bloke ready to die for you enough? Have we all got to do it?" he jibed. "No offence Weasley, but you're _mental_. You pull so much dangerous shit I'm half-convinced you're _trying_ to die...and it's clear you've still got no plans to stop. You don't learn. Or you don't care. I don't know."

Rose stared, mouth open. Scorp's words came as a complete shock. Though sharp as knives, they left her completely numb.

"My family adopted Hugo," Scorpius informed bluntly. "Didn't want him to go to the state—or end up in a lab. He hated living with Lorcan's kneazles, evidently. But anyway, my point is to say—No big deal if you die. If that's what you intend to do."

Though the words were meant harshly, there was something oddly relieving to them. Hugo living in Malfoy Manor, the safest securest building in all of England, in a bed of wealth, with doting parents and elves and pretty much anything he could possibly want by virtue of money; It was so much more than anything she'd ever provided. Her eyes blurred with tears.

"I...thank you."

He frowned. "I didn't do it for you."

Rose laughed miserably, tears still in her eyes. She gave a comically jokey shrug, showing that she didn't really care if he did it for her. She was no one. All that mattered was Hugo was looked after.

"You're really good, Scorp...I'm just not," she laughed, wiping at her eyes. "...I'm just fucked...I'm a cockroach."

His brow drew with startled concern. "You don't need to say things like that," he said, frowning.

"Please don't hate me, Scorp," she whispered, shifting forward, moving at him.

He seemed to inch back a little, anxiousness taking hold of him. "I don't hate you."

"You know I didn't ask for this," she tried again, still edging closer, perhaps to give him a hug or something, she wasn't really sure why.

"I know," he said, still anxiously inching away. "But my best mate's gone soft and stupid in the brain and you're a—cannibal that's going to eat Magic and I'm just...the arsehole who came to die, I guess."

She frowned in hurt, finally halting the movements that were unnerving him so much. There was, really, too much to address in his comment but she decided to focus on the most important thing.

"You're not going to die," she said.

"You can't guarantee that," he shot sternly. "Even _he_ can't guarantee that." He looked over at the sleeping Albus. "And I trust him over you—Or I _used_ to trust him...Now his brain's complete rubbish. He's ready to risk Magic over all this—you don't think that's fucked up? You have any clue how many lives get destroyed without Magic? Magic is _everything_."

Her brows raised in alarm. This was news.

Risking Magic meant...

They'd brought the Stone with them? They'd been that stupid? Is that what was in Malfoy's bag? The delicious thing that had been calling to her for so long...

Her gaze fell sharply, keenly on the knapsack.

Scorpius realized his mistake at once.

"Weasel—Weasley, snap out of it!"

She lunged, but casting a charm in the nick of time, Scorpius yanked the bag into his lap.

Down on her hands and feet now, she crawled slowly toward him.

Red-faced, Scorpius looked somewhere between flustered and terrified. He scooted backwards urgently, casting a quick shield.

A hex shot out the tip of her wand, easily tearing it down and she charged at him—

"Fuck!" He drew to his feet.

He stepped back, fearfully evading her lurking figure. "Stop it," he whimpered.

Rising to her feet as well, she growled and tossed herself at the bag. "Then give it!"

She threw her body weight behind the fist that edged closer to his face; it hit his jaw with such force blood pooled into his mouth.

Grey eyes stared in alarm, revulsion.

Then, his survival instinct kicking in, the eyes narrowed. In seconds, they became two strangers.

With his two hands he grasped her head and brought his knee cap up to her nose; there was a blunt crack and he released her greasy-hair slicked head. Pain erupted from the point of impact. Blinking away the sharp sting, she drew her fist back again and it ploughed into his stomach; it was like hitting a train head on. A strangled grunt of pain; He repaid it by punching her jaw, his fist collided with all her body weight. They continued this battering until he collapsed to the floor.

Her hand twisted around his narrow throat, forcibly pinning him down. With her other hand, she rummaged through the bag looking for the Stone. Her fingers brushed the cool, ethereal texture and her heart gave an excited jolt...It even _felt_ delicious.

"Stop it," Scorpius gasped, spraying spit, face turning blue. He gripped at her fist with his and tried to pull her off, likely wondering how she could possibly be _this_ strong—She was using magic.

"Potter, Potter wake up!"

His panicked arm twisted away and aimed a sloppy stinging hex straight into the slumbering chest; There came a sharp, pained gasp.

Albus was now awake.

It took less than a second and her waist was clasped, and she was forcibly yanked off the terrified Scorp.

She threw fists, tried to kick and bite and shove but it was no use. Her fists were gripped, twisted behind her, bony wrists held together in a larger—prosthetic—hand; His grip was how she imagined handcuffs to feel. With his other arm, he pressed her waist tightly against him, not painfully, but in a hold that was both restrictive and protective.

"It's too dangerous," Scorpius panted, battered and bruised, rising to his feet. He tucked the Stone back into his bag. "Taking her back is too dangerous, mate."

"We'll keep the Stone away from her," Albus answered, his voice tight. It was on the verge of sounding strangled. "We'll do better."

"No—she can fucking _sense_ it...How are we supposed to guard it forever?" The blond looked frailer as he drew back, clutching the bag, the Stone, anxiously to his chest, his gait all lopsided. He nearly resembled a scarecrow. His left eye was swollen, he couldn't be seeing well out of it, and his face bore congealed blood.

Albus' body became stiff. "I'll handle it."

"How," Scorpius snarled from a battered lip, spewing crimson at him.

"I'll think of something," Albus snapped back. "I always have, haven't I?

Scorpius' face darkened. His shoulders seemed sunk below the level of the ground as the emotion was blotted out and then he looked like he'd been sucked into a darkness so total that one couldn't be sure he had eyes.

"You have no plan," he croaked, drawing further back, fervently rattling his head. He sounded so broken, like he was regretting every decision he had made to this point. "You'll let everyone die."

 _Everyone_ …it didn't mean just them. Scorpius had assessed the magnitude. He actually meant _everyone_.

The hands released her. She scampered to the side, staring wretchedly as Albus moved toward the boy.

He stood there, inflicting Scorpius with a level, though miserable, stare. "I'll fix it," he said, quietly. "Just hold onto the Stone…It won't be destroyed."

"What happens when she tries to eat me for it. Are you going to let me die?" Scorpius wheezed pitifully. "Am I that expendable to you?"

Albus' shoulders visibly flinched at this accusation. It was clear that Scorpius was far more than _expendable._

"I wouldn't eat..." she began weakly, trailing off. Her word was pathetic. Her actions had shown her nature. There was no use pretending that she had any control over her hunger. So she turned to Albus.

"You can leave me here," she whispered. "I won't hold it against you—Just tell Hugo...Tell my brother...Tell him whatever you need to."

Albus gave a blink, looking near-tears for a second.

"Stop it," he murmured. "I've told you I'll fix it."

"And if it can't be fixed," she laughed. She wanted to cry, but she had no gauge over her emotions. "Will you kill me then? Because someone has to." Tom had promised he'd put her down mercifully after she slaughtered the Creature. In her mind, it was the most justified end for a cockroach.

For a second, Albus' eyes etched with actual tears. He wanted to move at her, she could tell; he wanted to hold and kiss her. But he also could not isolate Scorp.

So he blinked and the emotion was hurriedly sorted away, buried into that tiny box in the corner of his brain, as if he had decided it was weakness and the moment needed strength. It needed the gritty, steeled nerves of the sociopath. That was the wizard Harry Potter had designed, and despite all the _hatred_ he'd forever carry for his father, that was—still—who he needed to be.

Maintaining a ruthless objectivity, he stared between the pair of them, with bloodshot eyes. His hands folded behind his back, in his familiar manner of sleek arrogance—it was almost a relief to see normal Albus—, and the chin tilted upward in scrutiny, showing that he thought he was the smartest person in the room—the Realm—fuck the Creature… And everyone _would_ obey.

"I'll fix everything," he informed curtly. "No one dies. No one gets left behind or eaten. You two will cooperate—Or you will be hexed unconscious and dragged. End of discussion."

A silence had fallen. And then there was nothing but morale-deadening silence. Quiet suffocated her body like a damp, musty, thick blanket, clinging to every inch of her ghost-pale skin.

"So now what..." Scorpius uttered faintly. "We make the run or..."

"We make the run." Albus had dropped a spell, destroying the faint flames in the meager hearth, and then they were buried in complete darkness which seemed to oppress them like an awful weight.

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 **Let me know what you think! Can they get it together before the Creature shows up? :O**

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 **To the Guest who asked how many chapters this story would be:** **Going off my outline, we have 35% of plot to go. No clue how many chapters. My style has changed and I'm now opting for more descriptive, immersive scenes, which makes time move slower… Let me know if it feels like it's dragging. I am veeery receptive to feedback.**


	49. Escape pt 2

The future felt like an unwalkable road. A journey to a land devoid of hope. It was one thing to look back and realize she lived in darkness, it was another to look ahead and realize her days in the sun—if she ever achieved them—were numbered.

But Al thought the hunger fixable, which either made him an unfathomable genius or an unfathomable fool. Believing this— _any_ of this—could end without her needing to be killed off, in the same way the Creature _needed_ to be killed off...He thought his mind could conjure an impossible solution…He thought this would have a happy ending.

"Grip hands," he ordered.

Scorp reluctantly reached over and with quivering fingers, took her hand, the same one that had tried to suffocate him. He saw her for the danger she posed. She was grateful, in a way, that someone did.

Shoulders slumped, Scorp's eyes were cast down in a mournful gaze. His mouth was set in a semi-scowl.

"Don't eat me," he whispered dejectedly.

Her throat gave a painful swallow.

"I won't," she croaked, tears building in her eyes. "Promise."

It probably meant nothing, but Scorp was kind enough to not say it.

Al glanced between them, his stare sharp and unrelenting, then focused upon the black space in the center, deep in thought. He was in his brain, planning, plotting. He understood too much of what he saw, he saw the Creature that needed evading, saw the Stone that needed protecting, the world the needed guarding, the best mates that needed saving…He saw all the factors and variables...So many things to go wrong...

"You'll both stay ahead of me, in my line of sight," he said, at last, quietly. "You'll follow the trail. You'll move as fast as you can—and you won't stop for any reason, is that understood?"

Two faint nods. They were too tired, too overwhelmed, and too frightened of what was out there to argue with him.

Al's face seemed focused, though weary, even in the darkness.

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Though devils did not sleep, Hell was not without a witching hour. Midnight fell with the histrionic finality of a velvet curtain, hiding even the smallest pinpricks of light from their mortal eyes. When she had first entered the realm, the unending gloom had been disturbing and disconcerting—nearly enough to break her. Though Tom had saved her from nightly abuse, and remained beside her, sanity was not something that could be corporally protected; familiar feelings often turned foreign in the dark, and once in while she would regress and cry, thinking of herself again in the _cage_.

Now _He_ was back. That Creature who had put her in the cage. It was easy to tell when he returned to the Dimension.

It always happened after the blood rain.

A stillness fell over the land. The predators do not hunt out of fear. But the prey, those he kept in cages, rang louder than ever.

Shrieks of terror billowed through the air like smoggy fumes.

The putrid essence of His breath spilled from the sky in a surge of abominable wind, nearly knocking them over, sending them tumbling into each other.

"Fuck!" Scorp hissed, shielding himself with his arm over his head.

Her hand dragged his.

"Keep moving," she gasped out, making stubborn strides forward.

Her feet nearly slipped on the newly wet entrails, legs quivering, the sudden cold air shocking her throat and lungs as she inhaled deeper, faster. With each footfall a jarring pain shot ankle to knee, ankle to knee. Winds whispered promises of horror through the tattered holes in her clothing; it was cold, much too cold, much too fast.

They broke into a run, the silvery trail the boys had used to find her was growing fainter and fainter—they had to get back before it disappeared. Darkness surrounded everything. It ate up life in its path. It would not give them any mercy as it destroyed them.

She stubbed her toes on skeletons hidden low on the terrain: stones knocked her shins, larger ones rushed at crotch level. She kept moving out of fear of losing the silvery trail but was impeded by the things that kept appearing at her eyes and edges: faces, outstretched arms, wings, all of which were fashioned from bones. Scorpius continued to drag, struck in constant fear. She tightened her grip and forcibly _yanked_ him along—The ground was lousy with corpses.

Dark birds, twisted rendition of bats or vultures, circled in escort. It was easy to feel troubled by their movements. She watched them, momentarily enthralled, and nearly fell facedown on somebody's skullbone.

A hand grabbed at her back—she barely held back a scream. It was Scorpius, agitatedly lifting her bony form by the waist like a clattering sack.

They drew a right turn; then left.

"You hear that?" he muttered.

She shushed him.

A light rain began to trickle.

"Motherfuckin—!" Scorpius hissed, casting a large umbrella charm to encompass them both.

"Move." A hard, startling shove came at their backs. They'd halted in their tracks and now Albus was forcibly pushing them forward. His hand twisted in the darkness and came to protectively grip her waist, while his other hand clamped at Scorpius' shaking shoulder. "Keep moving."

The air felt different. There was a largeness looming in the background, foreground, in every direction, a distortion of such inpregnable magnitude that it was impossible to really know its size. There was no time to stand there and take it in, but there was nowhere to go.

It began to fall. The shadow. The thick looming curtain swooped darker than the any darkness. A rush of air infiltrated into her lungs and she clasped onto Scorp's middle, yanking his body close to hers, while fearfully drawing back against Al's body. Both his arms came guardingly around her waist.

"What is it?" Al's voice was a terse pant at their ears.

"He's here," she croaked faintly.

"Sh— _shit_ ," Scorp shuddered, burying his face against her shoulder as another surge of blistering wind nearly blinded them.

A heartbeat. A hollow sound, a desperate sound, ringing rhythmically through the realm. Erratic. Unnatural. Fueled by Magic. And it was the same as her own—a cold liquid rushed through crisscrossed veins that froze her flesh and weakened her knees. Her foot faltered; her heel crushed a bone. Al's hand fell protectively to her hipbone.

The large looming presence drew forth.

Its—the darkness—empty gaze met her own. Tears sizzled in scarlet streaks upon her, evaporating before they could fall. His teeth were as white as corpse bones and the smile as wide as a skull's. The gargantuan mouth moved—formed a muted word. An obscenity. An command.

 _Stay._

Out extended a talon, innocuously offered, glimmering with fresh-prey's blood. Her stomach clenched. Her glands salivated. Increasingly, her vision adjusted; human eyes focusing upon the scorched crimson orbs staring back at them. His pallid nails gained a festering coat of fungus grey. It was frightening, for it did not seem natural. The talon lunged over and gripped her shoulder and–it was as if her innards were jellifying, her legs turning to bamboo, smoke curling around her ears. She could barely make out the presence of her friends, both of whom were wrapped around her, let alone hear the drum of her own hammering heart.

 _You are like me, Rose._

Her blood ran cold as the Creature regarded her. So cold. Cold as ice-water, oozing from a shattered skull.

 _You have my hunger._

The wind invited her. The shadow brandished a wing. An encouraging squak, a familiar glance. But the bidding gestures went unnoticed, unanswered; Her head was too full of whispers, and her eyes too full of tears—too full, too much, too little, too late.

 _Stay… I can feed you too._

The voice was reedier than it'd once been, but still tinged with a familiar amusement—velvet and cruel. His languid chuckle ran a dark pang through her stomach, her intestines, her entire digestive tract. For a moment, she thought she may scream—not from fear, but from fury. No longer safe, sanctified, sheltered, her _rage_ had been inexpertly excavated.

With a deafening _crack_ , a hex shot through the air. A large white glow of light blinded them and forced the Creature into retreat. She felt that she too was swallowed, erased, eradicated in the enveloping whiteness. It hurt her eyes, the spell was so white.

It was Albus, Stone clenched in his palm.

"Let's go," he commanded, shoving both her and Scorp forward with aggression. The three of them broke into a mad dash.

Her heart jostled with maddening acceleration inside her ribcage. Her gaze determinately stayed upon the silvery trail—it had to be ending soon. They had to be approaching the passageway, right?

Her bleary eyes made it out. In the near distance it flickered: the vague partition of light. In a desert of abject nothingness, it looked like a mirage.

That had to be the passageway.

The cold around her was stationary, yet it closed in on her all the same. With each tense step she forced herself not to hyperventilate on the stagnant air. She had to prevent the fear from escalating into all out panic. All that would lead to was more terror and the possibility of an early death she could not afford.

"Shi—!"

Feet skid to halt. Her head spun at the cry, horrified. Scorpius. She'd—in her immersed fear—let go of his hand and now he was on the floor, disheveled, panting. Her heart nearly went still the long trail of blood seeping out of his leg.

A talon.

The Creature was gripping his leg.

He had sunk its claws in deep into Scorp's flesh and the boy sat there whimpering, on the verge of tears from pain. The sound of his voice nearly broke her heart.

"Help..." he shuddered bleakly. "Help..me—"

The talon sunk deep into the flesh of his leg, tugging—yanking— _dragging_ Scorp deep into the darkness, his nails dragging in his wake as he screamed—begged— _shrieked_.

Albus lunged after him, without a second thought, disappearing from view.

She did not.

Her feet stood frozen like blocks of cement. She strained her vocals but nothing came out, still she screamed. Suddenly, her body wracked with raw sobs and she shook like a leaf. Fright consumed every cell in her body, swelling them with terror; she did not want to face the Creature, not here, not now, not so soon. She knew they couldn't win this. She did not want to end up in the _cage_ again. With every second she practically felt the rise of bile—she had to _swallow_ it.

Albus had gone after Scorpius and she had to follow suit.

It was all or nothing.

Drawing a deep breath, she made the plunge.

For a moment she couldn't see.

They were away from the trail.

A hex flew out, blazing fire in its wake, spattering with sparks as it landed against something solid. Albus had shot the hex, and immediately she felt her hand clasped by his. Relief flooded to know that he was beside her.

In front lurked the monster.

A large writhing, grotesque mass, unfurled to abominal size, body as black as the darkness seeping around them. The arms were large, talons grotesque. Several spindly legs skittered along the floor, supporting a solid black torso that twisted into an indescribable figure of inhuman abnormality. It was nearly obscured from view; It was everywhere, and physical chill swept through she drank in the sensation. She _felt_ him more than she saw him. She felt the multiple tentacle-like wisps dancing menacingly around them, looming nearer and nearer, until at last they were enveloped in a total and palpable fear.

Albus wasted no time.

"On my signal," came his hiss. Beside her.

She gripped her wand, swallowed painfully, steeled herself.

"Now!"

Two near-identical flashes of light shot, one from the Stone and one from her wand, colliding against the the gargantuan black mass. It writhed out in pain, the tentacles shooting in every direction.

A blond mess of hair became visible underneath a mass of thick, slimy tentacles.

Albus wasted no time dashing inward, while Rose took the attack onto herself. Talons came shooting at her at break neck speed, from every angle, trying to grip her arms, her feet, her neck—she dodged, blocked, threw hexes and shields. There was an anger that burned deep within her.

 _Oh—it's you..._

 _I was certain I **killed** you._

The Creature was speaking to Albus. Albus was not responding, busy excavating Scorp's body from the dismembered mess of tentacles he had created. Blood oozed from the carnage of severed appendages, black bile, sinful, filthy.

 _You came all this way just to kill me, did you?_

 _Just to fight._

 _Is that it?_

"Dont flatter yourself," Albus hissed back, lethal and furious. He shot down the set of tentacles that leapt toward him with a flash of electrifying spellflame—Scorp was hurt; Al was at his most _dangerous_.

 _I don't take betrayal lightly, Albus Potter_

 _And to think..._

 _The chance you lost..._

 _I was going to make you a Lord._

"Changed my career ambitions, I'm afraid," Albus replied icily. "I'm no one's puppet. Not my father's—not yours."

His eyes met hers just as he put Scorp's arm around his shoulders. Understanding the message, she instantly shot a shield, an enormous blue blazing light to keep the Creature at bay—for mere seconds. While she maintained it, Albus hurriedly pulled Scorpius across, lay him down, and expertly checked the pulse.

"Alive," came the assessment in three seconds and tears of relief washed down her face.

The Creature violently smashed against her shield, continuously, splattering sparks of light that made her scream out. Pain enveloped her with its searing embrace and she cringed away from its touch, though it drew her in tighter with every stab the Creature took. Everything and nothing folded into her, constricted her lungs until she was gasping with dizziness and an urge to vomit. She held her arm out, her wand, trying to keep the Creature from tearing into her skull with hysteria while everything from the past year caught up with her and she was falling, falling into the abyss...

Her arm gave out, and she collapsed backwards, heaving with an exhausted sigh. The second her shield dropped, Albus took over with the Stone.

A bright, green barrier erupted from his fist, a light so burning, _scorching_ bright, it was impossible to look at. It kept her and Scorp covered while they regrouped. The blond was awake again.

"I thought I was dead," he murmured shakily. She drew over to envelop him in a comforting embrace. Scorpius gripped at her back desperately; their previous was animosity all forgotten. He was still hyperventilating when she pressed an anxious kiss at his bloodied hairline.

"You're safe," she promised, rubbing at his back until he wasn't rattling anymore.

The light of the shield began to wane, Albus too was on the verge of collapse. He had only made it seconds, even with the Stone.

Fatigue hit him hard. He fell backwards on his arse, limbs sprawled, panting, clasping the Stone tightly in his palm.

Complete stillness fell over the realm.

"We've got to go now." Scorp's voice was small and slight, suggestive of his posture; she could scarcely hear him speak over the sudden rustling of wind, the brittle _snap_ of dried bones littering the floor as the swaying, heavy taloned limbs _neared_...

She and Albus exchanged breathless glances, nerves jumping with each spike of sound.

Wind was blowing fiercely. The Creature had barely been wounded. He was regrouping and he would come back hard.

They could see the passageway. It was in plain sight. It was reachable.

They were in the home stretch, they would either make it or they wouldn't.

"Grab his other end," Albus ordered, and Rose did so, and together, they lifted Scorp off his feet and hauled him. They threw themselves forward, limbs racing, Rose almost crying out in frustration, bloodied tears running down her face, her desperation thrumming in tune with her heartbeat: _please please please._

It was a mad dash, a final order action. They ran toward the passageway like there was a hurricane inside them. Like her brain demanded the energetic expenditure of an athlete.

Their feet hit the bright light and there was a rushing swoop that went over their heads and she was staring at whiteness. Her eyesight blurred, but not because tears were welling up. Everything became fuzzy; then she saw nothing at all. Her consciousness was floating through an empty space filled with a thick static. Throughout the inky space her heartbeat pounded loudly, echoing in her ears.

Tearing past the nothingness their feet landed on the hard ground of the Death Chamber in the Department of Mysteries.

Scorpius collapsed to the floor in an exhausted embrace. She collapsed on top of him, and he slowly turned over, shifting her off. Conciousness was sporadic. Her eyes ached, so she closed them and fixated on the feel of the cold cement ground underneath her.

"Rosie!"

Within seconds human—Hugo's—arms came around her and every emotion, momentarily, was lost to relief. Sobbing hysterically, she clung to her brother's small body as though she was drowning and he was a liferaft.

A glance over his shoulder revealed that Lorcan was sprawled on the floor too. And—Lily?—was next to him. The momentum of them tearing through the Veil had knocked both down. Lily was in-tears. Lorcan was staring, stupified.

"Close the passageway!" Albus barked. He was, by some inhuman resolve, already on his feet. Using the Stone to cast a shield through the Veil—holding the Creature at bay. A brash spark of light erupted from the curtain, sputtering flame everywhere which landed against her skin and made her scream. Lorcan, knees wobbling, stared in stunned horror.

"CLOSE IT NOW!" The frenzied shout echoed through the chamber, bouncing off the stone walls and through the empty atrium.

The Unspeakable nodded frantically and raised his wand to flicker a charm, sending the closing into motion. A large apparatus attached to the adjacent wall, a dragon-like machination, shot a fierce whipping flame to suture the partition in the curtain. Little by little the passageway closed, the large _THU-THUMPS_ of the Creature from the Other Side still echoing through the Death chamber, rattling the floor and making her heart leap to her throat.

Albus collapsed to the floor, onto his knees, breathing hard, his jacket stained with red. The Stone rolled out of his clenched palm, bloodied but gleaming. Safe.

"Al," Lily cried, running at her brother, throwing her arms around his back. Scorpius crawled from another angle and then he sat silently sobbing into Al's shoulder. A prosthetic hand clasped through the blond's dirtied hair to hold him. She and Hugo joined into the group embrace, wrapping Scorpius and Albus, until they were—minus Albus, who merely sat there in dead-eyed exhaustion—all sobbing in celebration.

Everyone was _alive_.

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 **Reviews keep this fic going!**

 **Next chapter we'll have fun seeing how cannibal!Rose adjusts to the normal world, to living with Albus, to Scorpius, and to everyone else. Predictions?**


	50. Lie

A _THU-THUMP_ echoed through the Death Chamber. The sound felt alive. Like an unnaturally loud heartbeat. It banged through every bone in their bodies. It went on for hours, driving Scorpius mad.

Muffling charms were cast so the rest of the Ministry wouldn't overhear–Secrecy was vital. Hugo and Lily took Rose to Potter's flat to help clean her up. Gauze clenched between teeth, Scorpius focused on repairing his mangled thigh, holding back a pained groan as a small, golden, flying needle sutured the bloodied wound. Thunderous _clangs_ of magic sounded, sparks zipping through the air, making the blood in his head pound.

The Veil was volatile. Beams of light shot out the curtain, waves of electrifying energy.

Potter was trying to tame it. The Stone clasped tightly in his fist, magic exploded, bright wisps of spellfire, tore through the hollow chambers. He paced as he shot spell after spell, angrily, scarily so, aggressive and aggravated, like he was determined to tear the whole world apart at the seams, to rip and yank and claw and rend until there was nothing left.

As the haze of smoke cleared, Scorp saw that he'd cunningly devised a sequence of blue bubbles around the Veil, one onto another onto another, like Russian stacking dolls. He had layered several barriers to prevent–

It didn't quell his anxiety at all.

How long would they even hold? At best, Potter was a novice with the Stone.

"You still have to tell Harry," Scorp grunted out, wrapping his thigh with gauze. " _Promise me_ you'll tell him."

Potter's shoulders tensed. He stared the Veil down, with an unnerving, nearly- _hostile_ focus, as if to quell the object into submission. Suffice to say, it didn't work.

A second later, he nodded. "I'll tell him."

"I'll see what I can do with the Veil in the meantime," Lorcan echoed hollowly, wincing as another _slam_ reverberated through the ground and shook his glasses. "It's a shame that an abomination like the Creature exists ...We may never get to fully explore the other realms...The potential for learning what lies beyond our own world will be lost."

"It is a shame," Potter intoned, features growing sullen. "Perhaps someday...

"The other realm's shit," Scorp interjected, before their daydream could go any further. "Let's just destroy the damn thing."

Both Potter and Scamander turned to him with stunned eyes.

"Are you mad?" Potter said, offended by the mere idea. "Are you inhuman? Are you _not_ a wizard?"

"There's no way to destroy the Veil even if it came to it. The Magic that created it is too ancient and far superior to anything we know," Lorcan said. "Perhaps with the Stone—" Potter shot him a dark, challenging glare. "Not that I'd ever suggest it," the Unspeakable reassured, with a flush. "I care for the Veil as much as you, Potter."

Scorpius, far less sentimental about ancient magical wonders, snorted. "I'd destroy it," he drawled. "I bet if I throw enough shit, something's bound to blow it up."

He stood and Potter's presence loomed in front, forceful hand pressing at his chest, coupled with an all-pervading stare, telling him to _sit_.

Like a child that's been told off, a glowering Scorp sunk back down.

"The Veil is one of wizardkind's greatest creations," Lorcan said, with the earnest affection of a scholar. "It's—how do the muggles put it—one of the _Wonders of the World._ "

Potter nodded over at the Unspeakable, showing his resolute agreement.

"Destroying the Veil is barbaric," he affirmed, folding his arms, leaning against a work bench.

Scorp stared, mouth agape. "You arsehole—Risking _Magic_ is barbaric."

Potter's hands folded into his pockets. He shrugged, noncommittal, deceptively-apathetic, and then sniffed.

"The Stone is safe. The rest...I can handle."

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After a year spent in sensory deprivation—it was as if God had adjusted colors in her mind.

The world was too bright; trees were not just green but radiant virescent hues that burned themselves in her sleepy retinas. Buildings were colorful as if they'd been repainted by sunlight and stood vibrant in the golden rays that fell unfettered through the clear sky. Roads that should've been grey were a sleek river of black with perfect yellow lines. Street-lamps were blazing blue.

Pleasantly familiar sounds rang out: birds, bells, traffic, the voices of _other_ humans.

But the best sensation was _touch_. Hugging Lily, who she barely knew but who smelled soft and flowery and with the promise of good things. Then hugging Hugo, who smelled like boy-sweat and grass and everything familiar, squeezing him in her arms as she clung onto his little shoulder, ruffling his wild mess of curls, kissing his little puckered brow. And when his small hand lifted to wipe at her sallow, tear-blurred eyes, and he beamed widely, so eagerly at her, despite how she looked or felt or what sort of monster she was, just with so much genuine, wholesome joy at seeing his sister _alive_ –

Relief flooded her system _hard_. Harder than anything. She wept and wept and wept until her throat was completely destroyed.

More relief came in the form of a hot shower. Water drizzling down her matted head, trailing blood like sewage sludge into the drain. It dripped along her ears and down her face, her mind fading into dullness, her thoughts melting to foggy illusions. Or was it delusions? It soothed her bruises as she ran herself over with a light layer of soap, taking care to avoid the deeper gashes—her backside was nothing but broken skin, even bleeding in places, and it extended down her legs. While some bruises would heal, others would not. The space between her legs was permanently broken, scarred with the Creature's brutality...A necessary remainder.

She tried to focus on the water. Unlike her, the water was beautiful. Her mind swirled; She pretended to be standing under an everlasting waterfall. Ever so peaceful…though it would not last—

Already the haunting, silky, baritone voice was echoing off the tiles.

 _Are you hungry, pet?_

X

Al's flat was small and dimly lit and bland, clearly chosen for the privacy and not the amenities, secured away in a small muggle corner of the city. The _Vanquisher of the Dark Lord_ —she had learned from Lily that was what they called him—was intent on hiding from the wizarding masses.

Like his father, he hated attention.

Like his father, he couldn't _avoid_ it.

After her decadent shower, she was greeted with the sight of—Scorpius—sprawled brazenly atop Al's bed, a bottle of whiskey sitting limply in hand, his bloodied boots lopped off. His damaged leg, thoroughly bandaged, looked in better condition than before.

His eyes were shot with fatigue.

"How was the shower?" he droned, moody, bringing the bottle to his mouth, watching as she floated—nearly _pranced_ over to Albus' wardrobe and yanked it open.

"Amazing," she said wistfully, rummaging for suitable attire. "The greatest experience of my life." It really had felt like it.

To her irrational disappointment, Al did not have any feminine clothing she could steal—After a year in an itchy potato-sack, she craved bright-colored, flattering, flowy fabrics—pretty things. She had to settle for a pair of grey trousers. Then she pulled out a red sweater that looked exceedingly comfortable. Rubbing it against her cheek, she sighed happily at the soft, warm feeling of cotton. She held it to her nose and inhaled, savoring the faintly pleasant remnants of Al's cologne. She'd never really noticed before how much she liked his smell. It made her—

Bile rose in her throat. The bad thought was quickly stifled.

She spun around and Malfoy's mouth was twitching in some insolent way.

"What," she said strongly. Emphatically.

"Nothing, Weasel," he replied, neutral. "By the way—you hungry?"

Her forehead creased in a tired frown. She had known he would go there.

"May I have some privacy?"

"You've had all the privacy in the world for a year. Why would you possibly want privacy."

"So I can dress in peace," she said with tired resignation. "I am a girl and perhaps I don't want to be looked at while I'm changing."

 _Not a girl_ , reminded her own voice. _A cockroach._

Scorp had the nerve to roll his eyes at her.

"I thought we were better than that, Weasel. I crossed the Veil for you."

"You didn't do it for me," she reminded insistently. She didn't want the baggage of feeling forever indebted to Scorp.

He gave a nonchalant shrug. "It was fifty-fifty."

Rose stared, in incredulous despair. Were these more hallucinations? She had just re-entered civilization and already Malfoy was testing her intellectual capacity. Why was he changing his story? He had been terrified of her, ready to leave her behind and now here was, trying to chat at her like she was a human female and not a creature of the deep.

The blond slunk his body against the headboard, cozying into the duvet, and yawned.

"Want to hear what your brother calls us, by the way?" he slurred with a drowsy, positively _crude_ grin, taking a large swig of beer. "We're _Rose's hoes_ —Bit demeaning but it has a ring to it. Guess you've got a lot of blokes under your thumb, yeah?"

She gave a pained, miserable laugh, not knowing what to make of the words being spewed at her at all.

"I still want privacy," she answered.

"We're too close for privacy now, Weasel. We've been through hell together—We've survived Voldemort _and_ the Creature—we're blood brothers...That means I can see you naked."

He was joking, clearly joking, and still it rubbed her the _wrong_ way.

"I guarantee there's nothing on me you want to see," she replied, with a bitter smile.

It was the truth. The lighting—granted it was abysmal in Al's flat—showed her to be pale, gangly skeleton splotched with marks. There were unflattering bald patches along her torn scalp. Her fingers remained blackened despite endless scrubbing with soap, and her nails were overgrown, chipped, horrendous. Her skin was a sickly, chalky white. She was not disfigured but it would be a long while, filled with copious self-care, before she looked like a normal person. If she ever did.

"You smell marginally better though," Scorp offered, which her mind read as a pathetic, positively _scathing_ attempt at condolences.

Her jaw set.

Perhaps, she should've known that he was joking, that he was just a harmless flirt, that making light of things was just how _Scorpius_ _Malfoy_ coped, but at present moment, everything spewing out his mouth was rubbing her _the wrong way._

"I'm actually going to eat you if you don't leave," she threatened.

That struck the right nerve. Rose wasn't sure if she'd been kidding or not, but watching Scorpius drunkenly amble out the door, in a rush to get away from her, stumbling over his shoes as he raced was a satisfying image.

Shrinking the clothes to her size, pulling them on, she studied Al's bedroom. It was what you'd expect: Plain, organized, functional, with only a small bedside table and long stacks of books sorted alphabetically, lining the walls, like that of a student living somewhere for a week, though he'd been living here for several months. Clearly, he had no conception of making a home.

In the living room, Malfoy was now splayed on the couch, bottle clenched in palm, quietly drinking himself unconscious—trying to cope with the horrors of what they had endured. When she entered, he pointedly turned his head away, like he couldn't stand the sight of her.

Albus was coping with horror in his usual way. Standing in front of a miniature cauldron on his kitchen counter, he was, with intense focus, decanting dark liquid from a vial. Lorcan stood beside him, muttering in low undertones against his ear, likely advice. Albus nodded curtly along as he worked.

Upon her entrance, both boys looked up.

"Rose!" Lorcan was jovial. "You look—well, less bloody. And _considerably_ less grumpy than I'm used to seeing you."

Rose beamed in weary appreciation when he strode over to give her a hug. It was quick, like he didn't want to touch her for long. _Because you're a cockroach,_ her own voice reminded.

"Thanks so much," she nonetheless said to Lorcan, quietly. "For everything."

Adjusting his heavy spectacles, he grinned. "So what was the other realm like?" he said, in awe, making no effort to hide his scientific curiosity. "You're the only one who's been in all three realms now." He counted them off on his long, spindly fingers. "The Living, the Dead, _and_ the In Between...I am _so_ envious. I can't _wait_ to learn—"

"Don't pester her, Scamander," Albus interjected, depositing blue powder into the cauldron and swirling it twice. "We will have plenty of time to acquire the details later..." He glanced up, curled a finger. "You—come here."

Rose neared the boy, with caution, aware that she had become a test specimen for something peculiar. When she was close enough, Albus gripped her by the armpits and lifted her onto the kitchen counter so that she sat face level with him.

"Now—" he began, fingers unraveling a bead from a plastic pouch. "Open your mouth." He placed it on her tongue and sharp eyes observed her. "Chew," he instructed.

Rose did so, with great frustration, and swallowed the bead.

"Open wide," came the second instruction.

Rose tried not to feel awkward as Albus probed down the inside of her throat with his finger.

"How do her glands look?" Lorcan queried.

"Normal," Albus murmured, brow knit. "Absurdly so."

"Curious," Lorcan said. "I would have suspected some sort of abnormality. Perhaps even growth." He scribbled down a note in his journal just as Lily and Hugo apparated into the flat, both carrying plastic bags.

"See you've got them doing your groceries now, eh," Scorp drawled, standing up to greet Hugo with a lazy, one-armed hug, ruffling his hair. "You really are a special kind of basta—Oooh...they've brought desserts..."

"Don't touch, they're not for you." Lily swatted his hands, and Scorp pretended to sulk for a second, before pulling her into a teasing embrace and landing her onto the sofa beneath him. Lily giggled, trying to claw her way out.

"Why did you only purchase sweets," Albus intoned dully, though he sounded vaguely irritated. "I had asked for a variety."

"Hugo," Lily offered in all the explanation they needed.

Hugo, bless him, was already spreading a bunch of different little sugary snacks across the countertop for his sister to try in order of his liking. "Sorry Albus," he chirped in a tone that showed he was not sorry at all.

With a sigh of resignation, Al turned away from the young boy. His daggered stare fell onto her. He unwrapped a chocolate eclair and pressed it insistently to her mouth.

"Eat it," he ordered

She took a large chunk, her lips grazing his fingers, and swallowed.

His eyes flickered impatiently across her features. "And?"

"Tastes like ash," she admitted hoarsely, watching his mouth curl.

Hugo dropped his face onto the countertop, clearly dejected his sister could no longer appreciate his favorite pastry. Lorcan dutifully scribbled a note.

Scorpius sat up, finally letting Lily escape from his clutches. "So chocolate's out," he said, frowning. "Pity. Tragic really."

"What does Magic even taste like?" Hugo piped, as he idly finished bites of the leftover chocolate pastry.

All eyes fell on Rose.

"Strawberry sugar," she croaked. "At least for me. It may be different for the Creature."

At her response, Lorcan blinked in awe. He eagerly jotted the detail down.

Albus' face darkened.

Lily, on the other hand, was beaming proudly. It was without a doubt her favorite flavor.

"Strawberry ice cream," she called. "Give that girl some strawberry ice cream."

Sending a disgusted sneer at his sister, Albus broke open a carton of the flavor, took a spoon, and abruptly shoved an ice-cream full into Rose's mouth.

It wasn't as potent as Magic…It didn't quite...fill the void, but it brought relief.

"Delicious," she heard her own voice cry out, tears of satisfaction brimming in her eyes. She yanked, with some aggression, the rest of the carton from Al's hands to finish off. Lily beamed in triumph.

Albus watched her eat, his mouth twitching in something between humor and revulsion.

"So that's really what Magic tastes like?"

She nodded. "It's what you taste like too," she said, quietly enough so only he could hear.

He met her eyes— _caught_ her eyes, and the intensity was disarming, and it hit her the way one of his hexes would, left her aching and gasping for breath.

"That so?" he murmured.

She hesitated.

Then she nodded, quickly, unsteadily, and he reached, in an innocuous, very, very cousinly gesture, to brush a piece of string from her shoulder.

"Everyone should leave—Rose needs rest," he said, quietly, eyes lingering on the spot. "I'll... continue to survey her eating habits and keep detailed records—Fear not, Scamander."

There was a shuffle of feet.

"Hold on," Scorp hicupped, drunkenly staggering up, looking annoyed at being asked to leave when he'd just settled in with whiskey and was, evidently, nearing being completely plastered. "She can't live off strawberry ice cream forever, now can she?"

"Of course not," Lorcan interjected. "But it gives us a way to prevent her from eating..."

He didn't finish.

"As I've said, I'll continue the documentation so we can devise a more permanent solution. For the time being this is enough," Albus said curtly. Then an awkward pause. "Everyone may now leave."

"Why do I have to go," Hugo insisted. "I can stay, right?"

Rose turned her head toward her brother, heart aching, face crumpling. Her eyes began to fill stupidly with tears.

Gripping Albus by the shoulders, she shoved him—much to his annoyance—aside for better access to Hugo. The little boy quickly jumped her arms as she slid off the counter.

"You never leave my side again," she cried, bending to hug him tightly and scrub his forehead with kisses. "I missed you so so so so _so_ much."

Hugo wiped the kisses with the back of his hand and did not chastise her for them, though he looked a little disgusted. "You look like the skeleton-man," he noted quietly, poking at her sides. "Was it that bad on the Other Side?"

Rose nodded into his shoulder but did not go into details.

His small hand ruffled at her scraggly hair. "Don't you worry Rosie," he said. "I'll take you to the bakery every day to fatten you up...I know a good one that makes strawberry custard, strawberry shortcake, strawberry pie..."

As Hugo began to jot out some ambitious meal plans, Rose laughed tearfully. It brought immense relief to her heart.

She could see Albus observing the pair of them, brows raised, with a certain air of impatience and even a hint of jealousy. Lorcan, picking up the slack, was scribbling, likely, some rudimentary potion designs onto parchment. He nudged at Albus to draw his attention. Looking instantly Intrigued, Albus picked up a quill and scribbled adjustments and the boys grew lost in discussing specifications.

Scorpius, meanwhile, had finally finished off his bottle and mustered the energy to stretch his arms into a yawn.

"Potter—we need to talk. Alone," came the slurred hiss. There was a pointed emphasis on the final word.

Everyone seemed to look up. Albus surveyed the boy's demeanor with one bored, dismissive sweep. He turned to Lily.

"Apparate him home—he's drunk and I have no patience for incoherency."

"I'm not incoherent," Scorpius hiccuped, resisting Lily's efforts to grab his arm now. "We need to fucking talk. I need assurance. I need validation. My emotions are racing crazy—I'm literally PMS-ing. I need to know what you plan to do with the St—"

"Tomorrow," Albus dismissed. His eyes flashed in warning—he did not want to discuss the Stone around _her_. "Get him out of my flat before he vomits on the carpet, Lily."

"As you wish Grand Overlord," the sister uttered dryly, taking Malfoy's arm. "Let's go, Boy Wonder."

Before Scorp could feign offense to the nickname, they were gone in a flash.

Lorcan left in a flash too.

Then only Hugo remained.

Albus, to his credit, waited patiently. Mug of coffee in hand, he slunk onto his armchair, sipping, watching her and her little brother with a quiet, inspecting stare that was only a little intimidating. Maintaining that polite, cousinly distance that was a farce.

He waited until Hugo had finished telling all his stories and was chattered out, until he had fallen tired on the sofa and Rose had adoringly removed the little boy's shoes and tucked him snug under a blanket and scruffed his hair a few loving moments more until he'd drifted from consciousness. The second Hugo's first snore rang out, she was yanked off the sofa and back into the bedroom.

The door shut, locked, and then she was buried against pillows, and he was fully pressed against her, his body creating a cocoon of warmth and of the most intense sort of heat—It was a _shock_ to her system. She could barely breathe, and it had never been like this, it had never felt so real and he had never felt so present and his teeth were nipping at her lips.

"So I taste like Magic?" she heard him say, in sly, conspiratorial laughter.

Nodding softly, she exhaled against his smooth jaw, her face buried and the ends of her lashes brushing against thin black hair. His lips, his face, his body—everything radiated warmth.

She traced the veins on his hand with her fingertips.

"I still can't believe we made it," she said softly. "I can't believe I'm not dead."

His mouth descended to the middle of her neck, lips touching, and he was murmuring things she couldn't quite make out at first. With a deep inhale, he cleared his throat. "I... have more good news—You don't smell like a corpse anymore."

"I still look like one."

Green eyes wearily glanced up. "Well," he conceded, raising his shoulders a fraction.

She smiled, trying not to cry.

For several minutes, they lay in quiet, resting, his head at her chest, not really looking for words. Slinking fingers through his black locks, she traced slow, massaging circles against his scalp.

He groaned against her, and her stomach clenched. "Feels too good," he murmured, eyes clasping shut. "All worth it now."

Her heart quietly cracked inside her chest as she leant in, kissing at his temple. She whispered those three private words into his ear that she knew he always, _always_ needed to hear.

His lashes fluttered.

"Even now?" he breathed.

"Even now."

X

Night passed in the ebb and flow of emotional tides. Affection and hostility.

She drank him with all her senses. His smoky smell, his pungent taste, his low voice, gravelly, edged with fatigue—the warmth of his hands. She liked that he did not recoil at her appearance, and that he was—somehow—still the most handsome boy she'd ever known...even if that made the kisses too intense and sometimes jarring...Her stomach clenched with heat and a foreign thing that was vaguely uncomfortable.

Maybe it was the scars. They were like tribal marks. They made her feel barbaric. Too many spanned her skin, angry and pink, still waxy, and very ugly, the most visible one stretching from just beneath her frail chin to an inch above her nonexistant breasts.

Albus traced the outline of it with his mouth, his eyes glittering and rage palpable for the culprit—but he was gentle, uncharacteristically so, when he leant up to kiss her lips.

"I'll kill him," he murmured warmly, like he was assuring her of something horribly romantic. "I swear I will."

She pushed him away. "Don't be stupid."

He shifted slightly on the bed, mattress creaking under his knees.

In the dim lamp light, he studied her intently, brow knit. His hand reached to cup her face. "Why's it stupid?" he questioned, thumb tracing the thin, delicate skin beneath her sullied eyes. "You think I can't kill him?"

Her blood ran cold, and she struggled to organize her thoughts.

"I _know_ you can't," she gritted out.

His mouth found her throat again. Her breaths quickened as he laved kisses, moist and hot along her jugular.

"Have faith in me," he said, hands squeezing her shoulders, pushing her on the bed. "I got us back, didn't I?"

Her head sunk in the mattress. His figure loomed, taking up more of her vision than before. The small triangle of his bare skin peeked out from the unbuttoned collar of his shirt, and she vaguely thought how delicious it looked, as he draped himself over her.

"I can't have faith," she panted, pressing her mouth, her _teeth_ , against that perfectly delicate hollow of his skin. Her palms clasped at jutting cheekbones, trying, and failing, to hold him in place. "He could've easily killed us—we— _you_ got lucky, Al—"

His lips covered hers. His overly hot breath made her groan, made her _hungry_. She lavished his mouth with an enthusiastic response, arms tightening at his neck, legs wrapping his waist.

"So eager," he laughed abruptly as she yanked his body flush to hers.

His mussed-up head rested at her shoulder. His lashes fluttered as he watched her, and he grinned, a sleepy grin, a disarmingly boyish grin, pressing a kiss into the crook of her neck. "No self-control—just how I like my Rose Pose," he breathed, before claiming her lips again.

"Arsehole," she shot back, albeit with fondness. He teasingly nipped at her bottom lip with his teeth.

"Anyway—I'll be ready for the Creature next time," he murmured, breath hot and swirling against her mouth. "I'll make him suffer."

Sweat pooled inside her palms. In the divot between her collarbones.

The words, oddly enough, surfaced more anger. _Outrage_. Her chest constricted around the swelling, burning emotion—she felt it in her scars, she felt the itch of her fingers as they ached for the pressure of her wand, felt the simmering ignition of consumed magic as it pushed at her nerves, at her veins, at her _blood_.

Spellfire blasted from her fingertips. She shot Albus off herself with a surge of blue light, so hard and _fierce_ , and watched seethingly as he flopped unceremoniously off the bed, landing on his arse.

He stared back, panting heavily, hair tousled over his forehead, disheveled from the fall.

"I never want _you_ to face that—horrible—sick _monster_ ," she hissed out, tears uncontrollably welling in eyes, fists tight at her sides. "I _won't_ have _you_ getting hurt! Is that understood?!"

He watched her for a long moment, mouth open and chapped and a vivid cherry-red.

Something flashed in his eyes as he grasped her true meaning. Surprise. Caution. _Alarm_.

He concealed it.

With a nod, emotionless and calculated, he lifted from the floor. Ignored the near-assault. The lethality of her magic. How easily she could have beaten him in a duel now—this had to be a sore point for his ego.

He slid back onto the bed. With slow, assured movements he neared. Hands gripped onto her hips, pinning, so that he could draw a leg over to each side, straddling her.

He sat on top of her, with a confident, unafraid leisure, as he dismantled her expression with _those_ eyes.

"There's no need to act like that," he said.

She bunched the sheets between her fingers. "How am I acting?" she asked.

He reached down to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear. "Like you don't trust me," he whispered, gently rubbing his thumb across the delicate point of her chin. He tilted her face so his gaze bore into hers. "Which is a bit ridiculous, isn't it?"

She said nothing. He gave her a few more seconds.

"Ridiculous," she agreed softly.

"Good." He brought his face next to hers. "Then here is my novel idea," he murmured, grazing his nose against her cheek. " _We_ don't face the Creature again. Neither of us. He will be the burden of future generations. _We_ move on. _We_ make a conscious effort not to die. Is that a deal?"

He had guessed her plans with frightening accuracy. He stared her down, calm and patient. She knew he was awaiting acceptance of his idea, which was, at best, a very thinly veiled command.

She deflated, shoulders slumping and eyelids quivering, paper-thin and swollen from exhaustion. Cheeks wet, she frowned miserably.

"Deal," she sniffled, her voice small. "Don't leave me, Albus."

He appraised her with dark, curiously emotional eyes.

"Never," he said quietly, and captured her lips in a long, sustained kiss.

Charming off his lamp, he burrowed into the sheets beside her. Crying softly she nestled up against his warm chest. His arms came around her—he pressed a soft kiss under her chin—and closed her in an embrace that made her heart clench and quiver and ache. He clung to her with a quiet, almost frail desperation.

The deal had been a lie, she had no plans to move on, and she was certain that he _knew_. She was certain because he got up halfway through the night and she could hear floorboards shift like he was pacing, restless and wild. Trapped inside his head.

Trying to solve an impossible algorithm.

X


	51. Play

September 19th, 2028.

Albus Potter, Rose Weasley, and Scorpius Malfoy—by the skin of their _teeth_ —Crossed back into the Realm of the Living.

Minutes later, the Veil was closed off.

Two hours later, a small Chinese town saw utter destruction. The Chinese Dark Lord was a faceless cipher, a tentative young man still on the ascension, who launched an attack on a settlement just north of Nanjing, a large explosion that destroyed 90 percent of the town and immediately killed three hundred wizards; An ICW address made a few hours after the attack cited the devastating power as "a new and most cruel killing machine."

One day later, this Dark Lord—a magical prodigy, a twenty-four-year old boy—was found hanging from neck noose inside his bedroom chambers. Suicide letter claimed coercion. Said he'd been forced to kill innocents by an invisible god-like entity. That he did not want to do it, but had no choice, for he had to "keep what he killed."

 _Delusions_ , dismissed ICW medical specialists. _Mental instability._ _Schizophrenia_.

Swept under the rug. Just like that.

X

X

X

 _Caged, paralyzed, naked; she was in the darkest pit of the world. Terror latched onto her heart as the talons swept closer. Lungs burned from lack of oxygen. Her head swam as vision prickled with black and an invisible hand came to close around her throat and her chest constricted and breath became labored and painful and she let out a broken sob and felt tears well in her eyes and—_

When she woke up in the Living world, in a bed and not a cage, her heart was racing and her face was clammy. Outside, a pale blue crack of alien light gained in intensity along the horizon but this was not what had woken her.

What woke her was the sound of " _Completely irresponsible_."

Uncle Harry.

They were talking— _yelling_ in Al's living room.

"Of all the things you've ever done, Albus, of _all_ the things, this has got to be _most dangerous_."

"It's not the _most_ —"

She groaned, not wanting to be present for this conversation. Burrowing inside warm sheets, she pretended she wasn't. Temples pounded against the gaining sunlight in the room, shifting bodies, screeching chairs, the sharpness of their voices, rising in intensity to a loud crescendo.

"THIS IS UTTERLY _IMMORAL_ BEHAVIOR—"

"I DON'T GIVE A—"

"YOU RISKED _**ALL**_ OF MAGIC!"

All fell eerily quiet.

A door creaked, hinges squeaking, dented brass knob rattling as it slammed shut.

Albus had stormed out for a smoke.

"Oh no you don't!"

Impatient footsteps—Harry's—thumped across the floor.

"Get your hands _off_ me!" came an outraged shout.

A whip-crack of _Carpe Retractum_ and Harry was dragging his son back into the flat. Heels scuffed and _screeeech_ 'd against floorboards.

Harry was doing magic, powerful magic, which meant Albus had returned the Stone, which meant he had told his father everything, which meant...

It meant _this_ was the aftermath.

She got up and ambled out, a sulking fatigue to her step.

They sat at the breakfast table. Albus, hair wet and unruly like he'd showered not too long ago, was only wearing trousers. His torso bore fresh bruises from their recentmost battle, but he looked well, if thinner than he carried himself to be. The adjacent window cracked open, he puffed on a cigarette and drummed his fingers against his thigh. His legs were long, his knees spread impolitely wide at the table, and there was a menace, almost, to how he was sprawled out. Like he was intent on taking up as much space as he could.

This was being done, without a doubt, to piss off Harry who wore blue ICW robes, pressed, professional, while tersely sipping on a mug of—what looked to be now—cold coffee, as he stared his son down with some impressive hostility. Breakfast pastries sat at table center, unscathed.

Tearing away from their silent staredown, both sets of eyes latched onto her.

Harry's anger dropped.

"How are you feeling?" His tone, quiet, caring, was complete opposite to the sharpness he'd used with Albus.

She gave a controlled smile.

"Unsure," she answered. It was the truth.

"Come sit down."

She searched within herself for any interest or desire to talk to Harry and found none. Still she pulled a chair, plopped down. Said nothing, staring out the window across.

"Eat." Harry scooted the pastries at her.

Regarding the warm, flaky croissants finally piqued an emotion: Heartbreak. Her shriveled stomach gave an ache. Albus shot her a look so full of hidden meaning she thought she must've been imagining it.

Harry noticed the look and suddenly the air was scarlet with tension.

It was clear, in the moment, that they'd given it away. The all-too prominent hickey on Al's neck, their smudged lips, the way their postures leaned toward each other. Slowly, it dawned on Harry's face.

"Merlin's trousers," he said sanctimoniously. "She is your _cousin_ , Albus."

Her cheeks burned. She was surprised the words affected her the way they did. To his father's further horror, Albus cast a caustic, markedly indifferent glance out the window.

"I slept on the sofa," he said, mouth twitching to a defiant smirk.

"You're lying." He _was_ lying.

"I'm saying what you want to hear so we can move past this pointless interlude," he droned insolently. "She has spent a year in the other realm— _Look_ at the state of her. Focus on _that_."

Uncle Harry's face resurfaced graveness. He gave a long-drawn sigh and pulled a newspaper out of his robes. Unfolded it. Slid it over the table.

"Do you have any clue what's been going on in the world? An attack. China. Wiped out a town. _Last night_."

Albus sat composed, eyes emotionlessly tracing the headline. She stood to read over his shoulder. It was only with exertion that she managed to keep her muscles from wincing. The gruesomeness of the details was so great.

Albus did not experience her struggle. "And this happened after we got back?" he queried, objective as ever.

"He's feeding," her voice quaked. "He's feeding harder—He's trying to push through the barrier."

"Of course he is." Harry scowled at his son. "You gave him an avenue to get in. You introduced the possibility. Now he won't quit. He _wants_ to get in."

"He won't succeed," Al dismissed, pressing his fingers onto the paper and shifting it aside with a sneer. "I rebuilt the shields. And even if he does push through, we have the Stone—We can handle him."

Harry shot his son an incredulous look.

"And at the expense of _what_ , Albus? I have worked _hard_ to keep him out of the Western Hemisphere."

Ignoring his father's grim tenor; Al stalked to his bedroom, reappearing as he was drawing his arms through the sleeves of a starched white shirt. "No harm has come to England," he muttered, halting in front of the wall mirror to do his buttons with an almost brutal efficiency, his mouth a thin line. "Nothing about this is unsalvageable."

"Except hundreds of Chinese lives," Rose noted bitterly, giving him a sullen glare.

Albus shot a weighted look. "We couldn't have predicted the attack—that is _not_ our fault."

Her throat felt dry. _Wasn't it?_

A hand reached over and squeezed hers. Harry. Infuriated, she yanked hers away and he frowned.

"It's not your fault," he assured. "Cygnus has been orchestrating attacks in China for quite some time now …And now he's killed off his puppet. Which is unusual behavior for him. He doesn't dispose of his puppets so quickly."

She pulled the paper in her direction, reading despondently. "It says the Dark Lord committed suicide," she sighed.

"Right," said Harry. "My only worry is I don't know what he's thinking …Cygnus doesn't play reckless. Too much bloodshed, all at once, is suspicious. It isn't advantageous for him to reveal himself to the world—he has always maneuvered through the destruction caused by dark lords. He has always used pawns. He likes to maintain the fact that he _doesn't_ exist."

A presence draped over her shoulders, and Al's cheek pressed to hers. He was surveying the article again.

"The Creature may just be getting bored," he said, warm breath gusting against her ear. "He's been around since—2000 BC? I'd get bored with my existence too." He added with a scoff: "I'd hurl myself off a rooftop."

"How do you know he's been around that long?" Harry said, pointedly ignoring the second half of the statement.

"I did some digging," he answered. With a smirking tone he added: "In Egypt."

Harry stared levelly, infuriated by the many secrets his son had been keeping.

"We can talk about that more later."

Al nodded against her face before tilting his, pressing a brusque kiss at her cheek as he inhaled her deeply. Mortified, her face surged bright red. He strolled back to his seat without a care.

Harry gawked at the open display.

"She's your sister." His tone was incredulous with disgust.

She flinched. Albus didn't.

" _Lily_ is my sister," he corrected.

"Rosie is as good as," Harry echoed faintly. "Your aunt and uncle and I ...we raised you two together. You can't just ignore it. You can't just decide it doesn't matter anymore because it suits you."

"Yes I can," Al said, petulant. "I can decide whatever I wish and I will do as I please. I will disregard every rule that you impose and I _will_ bend reality to my favor."

"And I think—" she attempted.

"Things like this don't end well," Harry said, shaking his head in disappointment. "Family...It has boundaries that are important for _safety_...You have no respect for family, Albus."

"Can I just—"

"And whose fault is that?" Albus bit out, acid-vicious, wicked-sharp, at his father.

A heavy silence fell.

"Don't bring all that up right now. Not in front of Rosie."

Both sets of eyes snapped to her. She opened her mouth, incredulous, inflamed, then stupidly closed it. _Now_ she was speechless.

"She knows about everything," Albus answered for her, returning an unflinchingly steady stare at his father. "All that you did to me when I was a child. Unlike you, she's on my side. She's _always_ been."

Harry's posture did not change. He sat arms folded, back stiff, forehead heavily creased with remorse, but hardening with anger at his son's petulance.

"Well, I can see you have no respect for Magic...that much I know I taught you."

Albus smiled, a mirthless, mutilated thing.

"Respect," he echoed with a sneer, leaning into the father." You treat it as if it's a God—it's a _tool_. I'll use it, I'll abuse it, I'll mold it to suit my goals, It is what I have always done and it is what I will always do—it's how _you_ raised me."

"I did _not_ raise you like this," Harry said hotly.

"You raised me to do what I deemed necessary...I deemed bringing Rose back necessary," Albus said lowly. "And if I had to risk Magic to bring her back, I'd do it again. And again. And again. You know why, Dad?"

"No." Harry's nostrils flared, even as that same bone-deep sadness from earlier made a fleeting reappearance. "No, I don't know why."

"Because I owe her that." His voice was stalwart, cold. "Because she'd do the same for me. Because Magic isn't my God...and after all the _pointless_ years I've wasted in your ventures, I've come to the decision that neither are _you_."

Harry studied his son, his face twisted in hurt, his brow creased.

"Then what is, Albus?" he prompted. "What is your God?"

Albus shifted, slightly, to stare at his father, his jaw slack, his gaze intent, one that was too calculating to be deliberation but too open to be a tactical error.

"Me," he replied, smoothly. "I am God."

A pause. A long, long pause.

Burying her face in hands, Rose _groaned_.

"Is that so?" Harry gave an incredulous laugh. He turned to her. She hid behind her hands. "Rose; Consider the size of my son's ego...him, _really_?"

"He's not serious," she attempted, massaging her eyelids; She felt inclined to defend Al even when it came to the indefensible. "He never developed a proper sense of humor... this bastard version is the best he can do."

"He's joking? Can you tell? I really can't."

"Al likes to push buttons," she said, with a heavy sigh. "Yours and mine." She sent an assuaging glare in the boy's direction. "Especially mine."

If only to prove her point, Al smiled smugly. With a swift, abrupt enchantment, he yanked her chair close, lifted her leg by the knee, and lay it across his lap.

"You mean this button?" He kneaded at her ankle, at the delicate sore spot she had complained about last night, with expert digit precision.

"Stop it," she murmured, face heating, scandalized he would do something so intimate in front of his father.

"Yes, please stop," Harry agreed, also looking scandalized.

Al's mouth curled, all too pleased that he could unnerve them both at the same time.

Ignoring the arsehole antics, she turned to Harry.

"We're committed to protecting Magic," she said. "We understand how important that is. _Of course_ we do. It would be inhumane not to. Magic has been our entire life." Albus shot a combative look. "Yes it _has_ ," she corrected his thoughts sharply. "Wipe that face off your face."

His face fell.

"Already back to yelling at me, I see," he uttered, monotone. "It hasn't even been a complete day."

"Well it hasn't taken long for you to piss me off."

"How have I—" He broke off, eyes fuming. "I Crossed the _Veil_ for—"

"Don't lord it over me," she retaliated, annoyed now. "I'd have done it for you too."

"I _know_ that."

"I _know_ you know that."

He blanched. "Then why are we fighting? Just to fight? Are you bored?"

She scowled. "I'm hungry," she droned.

Albus blinked once. Twice.

"Maybe we should get some breakfast in Rosie before we have a talk," Harry said wearily. "Albus—be a good brother and make her some eggs."

"I'm not her brother." Albus made a large gesture of sweeping his hand along her leg.

"I don't want eggs," she lamented, flopping her face limply, miserably against the table, more upset by the other half of that statement.

"Then what will you like," Harry said, pointedly ignoring his son, standing up. "I'll make it. "

Also ignoring the looks Albus was shooting her, Rose hesitated for a second before opening her mouth.

Tom urgently hissed: _Do **not** tell Harry Potter._

So she just murmured, "Nothing."

 _Good_ _girl._

 _He will never understand._

 _I know his nature. If he learned of what you consumed, of what you were **capable** of, he would turn against you in a second._

 _He may even try to kill you._

Her heart shuddered. Tom, in her mind, made perfect sense. Harry's entire objective was to protect Magic, and if he felt she stood in the way of that...Then his best course of action would be to kill her. Harry wasn't Albus, and their bond wasn't strong enough for him to make allowances for her. He had said so himself: Family had _boundaries_.

Anger felt like a brick in her gut. She stared down at her lap, trying to quell her rising fury. It was coming out of nowhere. Perhaps, it was coming from Tom.

Harry's gaze upon her was heavy, remorseful. He did not suspect.

"Rose, dear." She winced when his hand pressed, gently, at her shoulder. "We should...talk about what happened to you under the Creature."

Her heart sank. Did he really say _under_?

Was this a hallucination?

He had spent years with the Creature inside his head. He knew the Creature's nature better than anyone.

Was it possible. That Uncle Harry—

"Do you need anything from the store?" he asked, switching subjects with a disorientating speed.

"Strawberry sugar."

"Albus, be a good brother and fetch this item."

Realizing this was clearly a ploy so that his father could talk to her alone, Al sneered. "I don't take orders from—"

"Yes, yes, I'm not your God...Do it for Rose. You were willing to _cross_ _the Veil_ for her, surely you can _cross_ _the street_ to the store for her."

This was a flawless point. His son drew up in defeat and stalked irritably to grab his sneakers. His gaze fell upon Hugo, blissfully drooling, still sprawled on the sofa, and he scowled. "Someone wake him before noon...He's as bad as Malfoy..." he uttered, lacing his shoes.

"Hurry along now," shooed Harry.

Albus cast a wretchedly murderous look at his father, a glare befitting the Dark Lord.

Then, Albus turned, and strode out the flat, keys jangling in his hand, grumbling to himself, on his way to do the groceries for the very first time in his young life.

Watching the lean shoulders vanish from view, she felt a stab of petty jealousy over his absurd good looks.

"Talking to him is like pulling teeth sometimes—most of the time," Harry contemplated, taking a sip of coffee, eyes flickering to her with a modicum of amusement. "It's not just me, right?"

With a small, detached shrug, she stared out the window, not wanting to lend Harry any solidarity. She picked up the unfinished cigarette Al had left, drew a sharp stream of smoke, coughed, remembered she hated smoking, and tossed the device out the window.

Seconds, long and awkward, dragged by, until at last Harry posed the inevitable:

"So what happened?"

Her mouth trembled. She shot a wretched glare.

"What do you think?" she said. The marks on her neck were evident, but she folded her sleeves to show him the wide array of bruises the Creature had branded her with.

Harry's face sunk. "What else?" he prompted, though gently. "I know how he can be—what he does to those he deems dispensable… To women."

She felt light-headed. Her heart was banging a little too hard, starved for oxygen.

He knew.

"I wish he'd killed me," the words rolled from her throat, fragmented, like the deadbeat ticking of a broken wind-up toy. "I really, _really_ wish he'd killed me."

Harry looked at her, eyes poignant with hurt, even a little misty.

"Don't say that…" he pleaded gently, placing his hand over hers. "How—are you in pain currently? Is medical attention required? Tell me how I can help, Rose."

She rattled her head, gaze cowed to her lap, not wanting to see her uncle's eyes.

"Just don't tell anyone," was all she said.

X

X

X

It was ironic.

It would take twenty-three years for him to say _I love you_. Late one night, while crawling into bed, he whispered the words. Awkward, stilted, mechanical, like he'd practiced them in his head for some time, so quiet that she thought it a hallucination. It did not feel like something Albus would or should ever say.

It wasn't.

She thought _What the fuck?_ and turned away. Pulled the blanket over her head, and fell asleep.

In days the thrill of being in the Living world had vanished. She did not feel alive enough to engage. She felt like a ghost, like Tom. Hunger vacated her mind, and despair took over. The replacement food, sugar, sugar, and more sugar, made her queasy, lethargic. Rolled in a heated blanket, she napped away the long hours of the day, grouchy, uncommunicative, hiding. This went on for several weeks.

One fateful morning, Albus finally snapped.

"I'm tired of watching you sleep— _Move_."

Large hands gripped her sides, yanking at her coiled, slumped body. She drew fists into fabric, whined and groaned and put up a massive fuss, until he calmly, mercilessly, informed her he would blast her with cold water.

She slid clumsily off the bed, knocking her knee against the nightstand and thought _finally_. Her old friend, the sociopath, had returned. She almost fell, but Al's sudden grip on her waist steadied her, restored her balance. She smacked his hands away.

He didn't really blast her with water, much to her confusion, but he did lift her by the armpits and forcibly carry her into the bathoom ( _"I've had it, I've had it, I've had it,"_ he hissed). Rabid, she screamed at him to get the fuck out and not to manhandle her again. Said she'd cut him if he tried. Said she'd kill him.

He drew away. His face held no surprise. No fear. Everything was contained. Controlled. Mostly.

The mouth betrayed him. It twitched. Smirked.

And then, Albus looked like he understood her _perfectly_.

Hands raised, he backed out.

She turned to the mirror. Her reflection was blank, expressionless. She closed her eyes, and the shape of her face followed her into the darkness, the curves of skin over bone and the shadows of her eyes.

She didn't undress. Though many had faded, she had no desire to see the hideous marks again. She got in the shower and seconds later she started to cry. Sunk to her knees, curled into a shell. Thought about drowning herself. Filled the spaces around the glass door with her wand and turned the water to high blast. He rushed back inside, as if sensing her poorly orchestrated suicide plan ( _"You're silly. It'd be more pragmatic to use the tub,"_ he said, afterwards) and everything changed at once. Her arms twisted around his neck. Lips locked feverishly. Drenched, wrapped up in each other, they sat on the floor of his bathroom shower until she was calm.

Afterwards he charmed her clean, dry, made her decent. They went to her old family home, the one where she used to live with her parents. He took her because he had realized something was broken. More than hunger needed to be fixed. He took her because he knew it was something she needed to see again.

Outside the house were their graves. The graves of her Mum and Dad. The two people in life who had truly cared for her before their passing. The ones who had loved her most and best of all, and still perhaps not enough to stay alive for it. Bitterness stung her mouth, and she traced it along her molars. Her time in the realm had given her bite. Tom, who had been an orphan too, had helped her find _fangs_ —She saw why he became Voldemort. It had never been about blood purity, it had been about _vengeance_. Life was punishing, and it had molded a child into a monster so the child could be **just as** punishing back.

And one _I love you_ was not going to change that.

X

X

X

Life went on, as it always had. Time passed in games.

"And again," Al said, tilting his chin as he took her second rook. Rolled it between his palms. "Rosie. You're not paying attention."

The harsh October wind rattled the windows of his flat, a staccato accompaniment to the rain ringing against the roof. "I am," she said, advancing her remaining knight. "I'm just lulling you into a false sense of security."

Albus grinned. "Devious."

"What can I say? I'm a fiend." She tapped a finger against the edge of the coffee table, watching his face as he studied the board.

His forehead furrowed. "Stop staring at me. I'm thinking."

"You're so cute I can't help it." She smirked.

Al ignored her. He thought _cute_ was a disparaging term—a thing you called a boy and not a man—and he did not like it, even as a flirtation.

She folded her legs beneath her on the rug and leant forward, over the table. Her elbow knocked into her mug of strawberry-sugar infused tea and set it wobbling. "I think we should discuss the future."

"Plans haven't changed," he informed flatly, curving his back until his chin rested on the edge of the table. "Give me six months time; To fix the hunger, fix the trouble with the Veil, secure the Stone, and find for us a way out. Now—" His next move was an aggressive advance of his queen, a blunder of blind arrogance and irritation. "Do your worst."

She took her move, easing her knight into place. "I can't leave England."

He straightened his back again, scowling down at the knight. " _We_ can—and _we_ will." He touched the ridged crown of his queen, contemplative. "We will go somewhere sunny, just as you've said." His eyes flashed at her. "And in the meantime you—"

"I should go back to the Ministry," she intoned, staring at their dwindling pieces. "Make myself useful."

"No," he said strongly, knocking over the knight with his bishop, a move she had not seen coming, freezing them in stalemate. "No more chasing battles. You—are going to eat and relax and—do whatever it is that ordinary people do."

"...ordinary," she echoed, insipid and flat.

He nodded resolutely.

She gave a humored look. "Like what?" She prompted. "What is it, in your mind, that ordinary people do?"

He blinked, jarred by the question. "Well..." he began. "As long as it isn't illegal, I think it is acceptable...You have the prerogative to do as you please." A second later, eyes darkening, he added: "Except cheat on me."

"Albus," she implored, with a carefully patient smile.

"What."

"You're _so_ cute."

His lips pursed into a thin line, his body tensing in irritation.

"We've got to change our habits." He pinned her with a steady, studying gaze, his eyes sharp with something like concern. "Or—If change isn't viable, it is important to maintain the illusion so that we fit in common society." He was so clever, already thinking ten steps ahead.

"You keep saying _we_ as if you're included."

"Because I am." The muscles of his cheek twitched—outrage, probably. "I've changed considerably," he informed, voice stiff. "I have. I _have_."

"Your dueling has," she mused. "It's worsened in your old age."

The twenty-three year old sneered.

She nudged at his socked toe under the table, almost affectionate, knowing the gesture would placate. He scooted aside the table, chess pieces rattling off the ends, and bridged the space between them. Her shoulders bones dug into the sofa seat cushions propped behind her.

"You make me so furious sometimes," he claimed before burying the complaint against her lips. His mouth was hot, seething, familiar. "I don't tolerate insults about my dueling."

She charmed a blanket over his shoulders. It draped over them both. "It's not my fault you've grown slack," she laughed, wrapping her arms around his neck. "You're getting sentimental in your old age."

He hissed. "It's not sentiment."

"Then what do you call it?"

He tilted his face away. His jaw was tense, riled, like he was thoroughly dismantling her question, tearing it to pieces. She pressed a hard kiss at his temple, its sweetness tempering the sting.

"I don't know," he said at last, and turned back to her. He gave a deliberately sultry look. "But it's better. Now we're more... closely aligned, aren't we?" he murmured, his eyes lowering as he surveyed her fidgeting— _frustrated_ hips.

"Perfectly aligned," she hummed in agreement, just as he leant in to do so with their mouths.

Life went on, as it always had. Time passed in games.

X

X

X

The Creature's death toll was rising.

The night of three unexpected, inexplicable attacks, widespread across some of the largest cities in the world, killing large wizarding populations— _only_ wizarding populations—Rose curled up in bed in a tight cocoon of blankets and clasped at her ears straining, waiting for the piercing, earsplitting, abominable noises to stop.

The night brought up memories of all the deaths she carried close to her. She thought of the masses of people plummeting toward her at Diagon Alley. She remembered being on the rescue team at Camden, glancing into the skies and seeing balls of light manifesting in thin air. She recalled the utter massacre of the wizarding town called Little Norton where she had been the sole survivor. She remembered digging through charred corpses in the Highlands, tears in eyes, searching for a flicker of life. All those failures, all the moments that _made_ her.

And now it was happening again. It was _still_ happening.

She tried to bury her focus in books, before simply attempting to sleep the knowledge away. With the passage of time, the windows grew pale with frost, and she slipped into sleep without noticing, lost in visions of firelit skies and burning bodies.

It was near dawn when the bed dipped under his weight. "Budge up," Al said, and she heard her potions text hit the floor with a thick thud. "You're hogging the bed."

"'s freezing," she muttered, her lips numb with cold and sleep. "Thought you were training with your dad all night."

"He had a conference to leave for," he said, his fingers at her back, unwinding blankets exposing her to the cool air, piece by piece. Then he curled around her, chest against her shoulder blades, knees tucked behind hers.

"You smell sweaty." She jabbed an elbow back into his ribs, and he grunted. "And conference for what? The attacks?" she said.

"What else." He shifted against her, struggling out of his jumper and his damp-hemmed trousers. She heard them hit the floor on the other side of the bed, and the sweat-smell receded. "I doubt anything will come of it. He'll meander about and avoid mentioning anything of the Creature to the ICW."

Rose sighed; Harry's definition of effective governance, she'd found, was loose. She pulled the blankets over their heads, shutting out the chill and the faint dawn light from the windows, and tugged at Al's arm until it curved around her waist, heavy and solid as ice. His breath was hot against her neck; the rest of him burned with cold, and she shuddered as he shook, his fingers trembling in hers.

Slowly, he warmed against her. The sun rose, and the room grew brighter.

"Al," she murmured, the rough weave of a blanket across her lips, "It's a ruse. A trick."

He kissed her ear, sleepily. "I know."

"Moscow, Hong Kong, New Delhi; He's targeting big populations. He's making big moves to try to get attention."

"Yes, I know, he's showing off." He slid his hand under her shirt, spreading his fingers wide across as she rolled into him, onto her other side, and his hand slipped to the curve of her back. "He thinks he's so clever, doesn't he?"

She faced him across the sleep-warm pillow, saw the shadows like bruises under his eyes and the bloodless press of his lip.

"He's trying to get your attention. Trying to get Harry's. He wants one of you to let him in."

"Too bad for him," Albus grumbled, descending his fingers along the curve of her back. "He could destroy every city in the eastern hemisphere and my father still wouldn't let the shields drop."

"He's playing a game with us."

"He's playing alone," he said, his thumb caressing the soft flesh of her inner thigh. She gently moved the prying hand away. He shifted focus. "C'mhere." He kissed her deeply, tugged the ends of her shirt, breaking apart to pull it over her head. "You and I can...play this game," he breathed. His fingers flattened along her bare breast, clenched, and began to knead. His eyes drank in her reddening expression, a daunting smirk lolling on his face.

She shivered when he yanked her face in and confidently kissed her—drawing a _moan_ from her throat.

"Excellent," he murmured appreciatively, a bit teasingly. "Now—More of that."

She squirmed at the tenderness of her skin, handled by his callused digits, the tautness and sensitivity of her nipple.

His eyes opened, glimmering with amusement, seeking just a glimpse of her. "Rose Pose is all pink and—what was your disgusting word—yes, _cute_ ," he said, smirking in triumph. "All for me."

"Shut it," she snapped, turning brighter all the same. "Who said it was for you?"

He cocked his pretty head, donning a momentary mask of innocent confusion.

Then, his face dipped to her chest.

Rose gave a squeak of alarm as he twisted her nipple between his lips. " _Hng_." She nodded eagerly, pecking a wet kiss at his forehead, then a bit shakily whispered: "This is not cute."

"Then find another adjective," he ordered. "Now is the time—Call me sexy. _Do it_."

"You're stuck with cute until the end," she resisted, mostly out of spite. He bit her nipple, driving a sharp pang of sensation straight to her core—Her breath hitched a few notches.

"Imagine if your dad saw us right now Al," she panted.

She could hear the underling smirk in his voice. "He'd deserve it, wouldn't he?" he laughed lowly. "Good. I hope he finds it disgusting. I hope he loses sleep over it." He sounded childish in his fury.

"Me too," she said, panting, a little foolishly. "And you know—I bet—I'd want you even if I wasn't fucked up..."

 _Even if I wasn't fucked up._ He glanced up and emotion flashed in green eyes, an unspoken beat of hurt. But in a second it was securely hidden away.

His fingers slowly massaged her nubs to make her breathing shallow again. The friction sent a pulse of warmth through her body.

She bit hard into his lower lip. _Moaned_.

"Less talking; Just make that sound," he murmured, with the sly curving of lips. "See...all Rose Pose needs is a familiar touch." His laugh took on a playfully sinister edge. "And who's more familiar than her cousin Al."

"Oh fuck off." She tucked her head beneath his chin and sighed. "I already feel like such a freak."

He swallowed, and she watched the slow movement of his throat. His hand settled delicately on the angle of her shoulder blade, almost hesitant, easing her close.

"Who said that," he demanded quietly, pressing a firm, open-mouthed kiss to the top of her hair.

She let her mouth brush the skin over his pulse, and his grip tightened. "No one says it, but I bet everyone thinks it," she whispered. "Malfoy's been acting so paranoid around me. Haven't you noticed? He leaves the room whenever I come in."

She listened as Al's breathing slowed, growing heavy with sleep. "He'll get over it," he droned. "Adjustment period. Malfoy is nothing if not adaptable."

"Doesn't change the fact that I'm a freak who can eat magic."

"If you're a freak then what does that make me," he hummed low into her ear, the sound intimate and undeniably physical.

"The normal one," she offered, and he chuckled sleepily. "And anyway, you don't look like a freak—your good looks absolve you."

"Appearances are useful for deception," he yawned. "It's an effective smoke covering. A shield. But not much else."

"I wish I had a shield," she said jealously.

"I like you better stripped bare." He smirked.

After earning another jab to his ribs, he finally began to fall asleep. Rose listened as his breathing faded, gentling into unconsciousness. She watched his face, enamored by his stillness. By the illusion of innocence that came with sleep.

At half ten she slipped out of bed as if to put the kettle on, crossing the cold floorboards in a series of little, half-wincing hops. The fridge moaned, and she gave it a sympathetic pat before opening the door and reaching for the milk.

The kettle was never put on. Without thinking, she poured the carton into the sink so that it was empty.

Then she slipped on socks and shoes, a clean jumper from Al's laundry and his heaviest coat. She left a note on his pillow that said, _Went for milk. Back soon._

X

X

X

Scorpius was having nightmares again.

But that wasn't what woke him up. It was the bed jumping over the floor like it has a mind of its own. The ground was moving as if it were a wave on the sea and the noise was like extended thunder, only worse, because vibrations were coming from below. The bed rattled like a freight train just passed, and a terrible rumble lifted from deep in the belly of the earth.

This had been happening all night. Small, rumbling earthquakes all throughout London, throughout England, shifting in intensity, in magnitude.

"Where are you going," groaned his girlfriend, watching as he rose to his feet.

"You ask me this every bloody time," he muttered, yanking his trousers over his hips. "Potter's flat—the answer is _always_ Potter's flat."

"You spend more nights with your friend than you do with me," she yawned irritably. "Why don't you just date him?"

"Go the fuck back to sleep, Veronica."

His girlfriend gave an eyeroll, annoyed by his boorish behavior, but slumped back into bed. Scorpius apparated and within seconds he was there.

Potter too was awake this very evening. Scorpius wondered if he ever slept. He sat in his armchair, staring dully at newspapers splayed out on his coffee table as the ground rumbled beneath their feet. The door to his bedroom, oddly enough, was closed shut. Scorpius had an...intuition about who was sleeping in there but he wasn't going to broach that subject today.

A flicker of irritation passed Potter's features at the sight of Scorp, quickly swallowed by the tidal pull of his curiosity.

"It's with my father," he said, guessing the question before Scorp could even ask it. He was referring to the Stone. "It will not be leaving his possession."

Scorpius gave a weary sigh of relief, sprawling out on the adjacent sofa. The safest place for the Stone was with Harry.

"What of the earthquakes?"

"He's trying to break in. He knows the Stone is here. That is why it is safest with my father. The Creature cannot get to him," Potter answered, stiff, unemotional.

"So why hasn't he wiped out everyone else yet? The fellows sitting pretty in outside the shield."

Potter mouth twitched.

"I don't—"

"Don't tell me that," Scorpius snapped, staring at him with bloodshot eyes. "Give me your best deduction. And don't say something trite like 'Oh he likes to play with his food before he eats it'."

Potter swallowed; Scorp watched as his throat worked, blue-pale and vulnerable above his collar

"The Creature is biding his time," he replied, slowly, knitting his fingers. "He is planning, plotting, waiting. Looking for someone to give him a way in...Awaiting a slip-up." The corner of his mouth quirked in something like a smile. "He wants us to play his game."

"So how do we handle it."

"He likes to operate through pawns. He likes to maintain the fact that he doesn't exist. You cannot directly attack someone who doesn't exist."

"My question, Potter," Scorp seethed. "Then _how_ do we—"

There was a loud bang, a rumbling which shook the floor of Potter's flat and rattled his coffee mug—another small earthquake—followed by a flash of apparation. Lily stood looking disheveled in pink pajamas, hair tightly wound in curlers.

"Welcome to the no-sleep party," Scorp uttered dryly.

"An attack in Thailand," she panted. "Dad just told me it happened a few hours ago—Albus, turn on the telly."

A new Dark Lord was rising.

X

X

X

Unfolding history was an arduous task. Sometimes, it could be...tricky.

The man who was not a man hadn't always meddled. For eons he'd struggled and fought against his nature—pushed the depraved hunger from his belly—had sworn and growled and bit and _clawed_ —had screamed and demanded, choking wetly on the word why, why, _**why**_. Gurgling, spluttering, he had sprayed the devil ( _himself_ ) with copper-flavored splatters of his revulsion, his stained teeth bared. But his tantrums never earned him anything more than sieve-like pangs of pain down his throat (more hunger, it was always _hunger_ ), and a silken-smooth hiss of shadows and hellfire in his ear: _You asked for vengeance, did you not…?_

He had. He had wanted, above all, to rectify the horrors endured in life. He had been unjustly punished, mutilated, for trying to Resurrect his mother. His Pharaoh, the old cruel God, who had let his slaves starve to death, who had let his mother starve to death, had tried to bury him _**alive**_.

Physical bruises no longer adorned him. But he felt scars of dismemberment on his wrists, his ankles, marks of the Pharaoh's cruelty. Each faded brand reminded him of his ancient, subservient status— it fueled the hunger. His memories had long flowed downstream, they reflected the sunless sky of the In Between Realm. Blank. He couldn't see them, and he could no longer deny his nature ( _hungerhungerhunger_ ). Before long, all humanity was bled out of him: spiraled down his legs in the wake of stomach pangs. The heart was leached, and in exchange, the sugary-addictive taste pressed against his lips.

 _Eat_.

He no longer resisted. No longer struggled, or fought, or pushed, or swore, or growled, or clawed, or screamed, or wasted what precious Magic he was given. Now he fed on one of life's spilling essence like one of the starving: slurped and suckled as if a babe at the teat, trying to fill his emptying insides with whatever provision—whatever war—he could orchestrate.

The Pharaoh was no longer his God.

He killed the God. He became the God. Vengeful genocide had a source, a creative design. Humanity, though futile, served one essential function.

Its destruction kept him _alive_.

Survival was the eternal goal. And he had achieved this goal, seamlessly, mindlessly, for near an eternity.

Again

And again.

While civilizations _burned_.

And this civilization, _oh_ , this one was no different. It was uglier, sure, with bleaker heroes, slipperier villains—and martyrs who did not know when to quit—

But the story was the same.

The story was **always** the same.

X

X

X

She did not exist.

The Ressurectionist, for all political intents and purposes, was dead and Al intended to keep her as that. She was no longer an auror, no longer operated under the Head's thumb, under any wizard's thumb. She was, in the truest form, a nobody. Absolved of responsibility.

Once more, she became what she'd been at age fifteen: A blank slate. Free to do as she pleased.

Half of her time was spent with Hugo. The rest was spent with Albus, usually amid sleep and experiments. His mind remained as high-functioning and obsessive as ever; he excelled brilliantly at whatever task he applied it to, but success often came by drastic fixation. Right now the task was _her_.

He forced her up and changed when she did not want to get out of bed. He ensured that she had consumed the appropriate number of calories to steadily gain weight. He covered her tracks with the others when she acted strange. He paid no mind to her violent tantrums. Some days he went as far as to even comb her hair and cut her nails for her.

"Open wide," he instructed, depositing another spoonful of potion into her mouth. "Lovely. Thank you."

She swallowed the liquid. "It's dirty when you say it like that."

"What is."

" _Open wide_."

He turned away to tuck jars of herbs and other potion essentials back in the shelves, but she could hear his self-satisfied smirk when he asked. "Any improvements?"

"Yes, this one was more edible. Tasted better."

"Good." His arms gripped her waist and he lifted her down from the counter, pressing a warm kiss to her cheek. "Now wash your hands before dinner."

"Bossy," she teased, turning on the kitchen faucet and lathering soap.

Albus, having made stew, had already finished setting the table by the time she had dried her hands.

She couldn't help but stare as she sat down; she'd known him all her life, and she'd never seen him indulge happily in anything so human as food. He ate slowly and with great precision, his gaze fixed on something in the distance, just past her left ear.

She looked resolutely down at her bowl and took a tepid bite. The beef was soft, easy to chew, even if she couldn't really taste it–she had no doubt he had done a fabulous job cooking. It was a new skill he'd taken on and it was, as he said, not so different from potions. When she swallowed, she glanced up to see him eating again, his left hand neatly in his lap. He spooned his stew toward the outer edge of the bowl.

The ground rumbled beneath their feet, rattling their dinnerware, but it happened so often that she didn't really mind it.

Albus paused, his spoon halfway to his mouth, and met her eyes.

"They're coordinates," he said.

"Pardon?"

"The hours," he further clarified, thinking that she would get it. She shot her stupidest look and he drew a sigh of defeat.

"The time in between the earthquakes is always the same. Three. One. Seven. Nine. One. Seven. Seven. One. Nine. Two. Six. 31.7917 degrees North, 7.1926 degrees West," he rattled off in a long, exasperated breath and paused. "I've been keeping track for over a month now."

Her brows raised. She felt...betrayed, almost.

"I thought we weren't playing his game," she snapped.

His eyes flicked over her furious face before he leant his elbows on the table, his spoon abandoned in the bowl. His hands folded calmly in front of him.

"The coordinates are for a city in Morroco," he explained. "I suspect that is the location for his next attack...He's telling us so that we try to stop him."

"He's trying to draw us out," she murmured, wiping her lip. "What are you going to do."

"I've sent the information to my father. The ICW will intercept the attack," he said stiffly. "That's it. I'm not doing anything else...I promise."

Rose said nothing, sipping on the very potent, calorie dense serum Albus had designed. It was better than eating strawberry sugar all day, but it was not a replacement for Magic. She did not plan to tell him this.

Abruptly, she rose from the table. Moved to put on her shoes.

"Where are you going?" he said, brow furrowed, watching her quickly lace them. "It's late."

"To Lorcan's," she said, yanking on her coat. "He wants to collect more observations from me about the Other Realm. You know how obsessive he is."

Al's lips parted, parched and parchment-thin as they tightened with the sudden movement.

"What?" she prompted.

"Why are you lying to me?

"I'm not."

The muscles in Albus' jaw jumped, aggravated, but he replied in a slow, deliberate voice, "Scamander is at work—do you take me for a fool? Tell me where you are really going."

She stared at him, mouth open, unaware of how much time lapsed as she did so, before mustering an explanation.

"Just...wanted to be alone for a bit," she mumbled, face heating.

"And do what?"

"Nothing," she said defensively. "Sometimes I just want to get away that's all."

"Get away from me you mean," he said, and his voice had a whip-sharp sting to it, an edge of unfocused anger that made her shoulders hunch and her throat ache.

"Get away from everything," she said. "It's stressful and I want to—"

"In what way have I given you stress?" he demanded. The ease wiped from his features, leaving behind marble coldness. "I've kept you in excellent condition. Why are you lying to me, Rose?"

"I just want to spend some time alone with my thoughts. There's no need to get stroppy," she said evasively.

Albus laughed a little in a cold and biting way. "You mean your delusions," he said.

She gave a scathing look. Lifting his spoon, Albus deflected his concentration from her, voice sharper than he intended when he said,

"I don't understand why you're hiding things from me. Have I been subpar? Have I somehow disappointed your expectations?"

"No but—"

"Exactly. I haven't," he interrupted, posture suddenly severe. She stiffened under the weight of his gaze. "You know, its been fifty-three days since you've told me that you love me."

She stilled in her spot. Her fingers were clenched around an umbrella; she relaxed them, deliberately. "I do love you," she said, her voice steady. "Of course I do."

"You didn't say it."

"I didn't know I had to repeatedly."

Whatever he read in her face in that moment stopped him, just after he stood. His hands settled on the edge of the table, and he looked down at his half-eaten bowl of stew, his expression a carefully controlled blank.

She gave an apologetic sigh. "These things don't always have to be said, Albus. Sometimes—"

"Just go." He twisted his body towards the wall opposite so that she couldn't see his face, his shoulders slumping. "Hugo is coming in a few minutes." His voice became dull, lifeless. "Where would you like me to tell him you've gone?"

She frowned.

"Just say I went to Lorcan's," she said.

He gave a wordless nod, still not looking at her. She slipped out before he could muster the nerve to say anything else.

Guilt felt heavy in her gut. Her legs became rubber, bending pliantly under her weight as she took flight down a never-ending courtyard just outside the apartment building. The wind knotted her hair, resisting her swift movement as though working against her.

Ferocious winds and lashing gray rain chased her into an alleyway, shrill whistle of a faraway train screaming over her heavy panting.

 _You certainly took your time today._

 _Domestic life doesn't suit you **at all,** pet._

 _I was beginning to grow bored for you._

"Shut it," she said, scowling as she wiped water off her face. "I wasn't in a rush."

 _You should be._

 _What a dullard the boy has become. Cooking! That is a house elf's chore. He is the definition of wasted potential. To think that he was very nearly the Dark Lord._

She knew Tom too well to be insulted by these remarks; he liked her well enough, in his distant, ruthlessly pragmatic way, but his patience quickly ran thin, and often he took his bite out on Albus. She didn't care, really—she'd grown accustomed to living with Tom's antics in her head.

She changed the subject.

"I'm hungry. Let's get going," she said irritably, taking a look down the alleyway. It was the dark and stinky block between the backs of the restaurants and the theatres and would cut twenty minutes out of her walk to her target.

She had done her research, had found wizards to prey on who no longer deserved magic—Who no longer deserved to _live_. Criminals. Murderers.

This one, in particular, was a rapist.

After a quick glance over her shoulder and one more to make sure, she left the well-lit street for the gloom, feeling her heart quicken in anticipation for her next kill.

The Creature was feeding, growing more and more powerful by the day.

So was she.

X

 **Let me know what you think about the evolving Rose/ Al dynamic. Your reviews make my day!**


	52. Learn pt 1

For the Ressurectionist, life, once, was sacred.

Time passed, the world melted. Death was a constant, just as Life blurred to a dreary stretch of grey, an endless assemblage of carnage. _Life and Death;_ The words did not hold the same meaning they once had for her. They had lost their distinctive quality, their specialness.

She'd let herself grow lenient. _Culpable_. Across the span of battles and brawls, she killed, under the mask of self-defense. She killed when she was attacked, when she wasn't, when there was no other option, when there was. She killed when that was what she had to do to survive. To _thrive_.

And this—feeding—was no different.

In the man's weather-beaten skin was a fine meshwork of red threads; From the depth of his wrinkles she placed the convicted-rapist in his fifties. Even without a blood flow to back it up, his skin was tanned. There was dirt on the knees of his pale corduroy slacks. He lay sprawled on his back, with the spell-wound at his forehead ( _The spell had entered as if he was nothing, just meat, blood, bones, blasting a cavity into his skull as it burst crimson into the fading day_ ). No one could mistake the man for someone sleeping or a natural death.

Green sparks visible only to her hovered in the air, floating from his body. With a wand-flick, she swirled the magic into her mouth, down her esophagus and into the gnawing pit of her stomach. She drew a tranquil sigh as it spread, twisting out the cold, ruthless nausea, if only for a temporary bout.

The hunger always came back. It would kill her before it left her alone.

In the beginning, she'd tried to keep these feedings impersonal, but it quickly proved impossible. She hated all her victims. She chose them deliberately because she hated them. Molesters, pedophiles, sexual abusers; the barbaric strain of criminal that reveled in exploiting not only the minds but the bodies of the weak, the small. She chose them because she didn't just want to kill them, she wanted to put them in a pit and add shovels of dirt slowly until their goddamned mouth was full of muck. She wanted to hear the suffocation of their cries. She wanted to know the second they didn't exist anymore so she could savor it. She didn't care if they were sorry, if they regretted their atrocities, if they'd amended their ways and served their penance; she didn't want to hear it. There was no justice for this diseased strain of humanity, no redemption, no mercy. She would not _allow_ it.

"Done already?" said the crisp, baritone voice.

Tom offered his customary smile—allowed it to creep over his lips like the larva of a worm-infested corpse.

"I'm impressed. I didn't hear a thing," he continued vaguely, eyes lingering on the mound of dirt she had fashioned, the rotting stench of evisceration already a fading memory. A grey-stiff middle finger stuck out, in what appeared the deceased's final act of hilarious defiance. Scowling, she kicked it back under with her shoe.

"I hate when they won't stay down," she replied.

Tom laughed, as he stepped closer, so that it would be easy to touch her if he wasn't a ghost. His eyes were like two shining drops of ink. They glinted unnaturally in a way that reminded her of movement, betraying the smile he withheld from his lips.

"Don't look at me like that."

"And how am I looking at you Rose Pose." His voice was smooth and lithe, winding easily around her throat, in something between a caress and a fist. It left her painfully breathless.

Irritated, more at her own inability to keep her emotions in check than her companion's blatant manipulation, she turned away, strode out the burial grounds. He loomed over her shoulder, her ever-present shadow.

"We're using each other," she said—reminded, both Tom and herself.

"We're using each other," he repeated, in a sultry half-whisper. "You're exactly right, pet. This is a symbiosis…A symphony… A duet of the minds."

She chuckled at the poetry. "Of the minds?" she remarked, in a tone that almost mocked the Dark Lord. That audacity, that cheek; the ghost tilted his head, devious eyes piercing the source of it.

"Of the souls, my darling," he replied. "Of Life and Death itself."

And the ground trembled in their wake.

X

X

X

The lock click echoed through the small flat. She exhaled, not needing to turn around to know that he sat stiffly on his armchair, hands curved around coffee mug, staring her down with darkened eyes. He never slept without her, always waited until she'd gotten in, no matter how angry she left him.

"Honey, I'm home," she joked morosely.

"You've been gone all night; why?"

Not offering the courtesy of a response, she stalked to the bathroom to wash off, boots mud-crusted, hair windswept. Footsteps heavy with the weight of her meal.

A flash of apparition and he stood inside the doorframe. He drank in the sight of her, the dirtied sheen of her hair and breathless flush of her sunless skin. She must've looked almost beautiful to him–a puzzle yet to be solved. Something luminous in the dark.

"Let me see." His hand seized hers, inspecting the flesh beneath her fingernails; It was clean, of course. She was a witch, not a savage.

"Looking for blood?"

His cheeks were hollow with disapproval, but the eyes gave him away. They glimmered with figments of the real Albus. The one who appreciated the precision of a good, clean kill.

"No." His mouth twitched. "That would be sloppy. You're hardly a novice now, are you?"

X

X

X

History repeated itself. His father brought him to an open field again, far from city lights.

There was no mysterious cabin to investigate this time. Instead, walls of green, leafy growth towered as far as Albus' eyes could see. Noise pounded at his skull, the sonorous roaring of—well, he didn't know what yet, but he would find out soon. Drawing on brutal tests of his own childhood, Harry had built a maze of greenery and populated it with monsters. Albus would solve it in record time, using the Stone, or get the shit beaten out of him.

His heart raced in violent excitement.

 _I'll train you humanely or not at all_. His father had promised this after he got his torso torn. It was a lie of course. There was no humanity in progress. His father's morality was only as staunch as the world allowed it to be, and the world outside England was growing darker. His father was a creature who bent to fear just like any other human. Someone, outside Harry Potter himself, had to know how to wield the Stone, and after all this time, there was still no better candidate than _the ingenious son._

But simply wielding the Stone wasn't enough. Albus needed—not wanted— _needed_ total mastery, a level beyond his father and any other being in existence, although no books existed that could teach him, and no grand sages, no grand masters of the Stone remained. Not at this point in history, that is.

[idea: investigate history]

[find out how, when, and where the Stone was made]

[ _how?]_

"Get ready," Harry instructed. "I open the gates in two minutes."

He nodded tersely.

His father was the master at creating situations where Albus was forced to learn a skill or suffer grave consequence. Albus felt as if his life had been one extended session of these practicals. There was...no endpoint to examinations. Well into adulthood, these lessons thrived. Tests of fortitude. Of strength. Of cleverness. Of patience.

Of pain.

It should have been simple now, shouldn't it? He had crossed the Veil. He had said the three words. He had seen countless idiots coming by love accidentally, effortlessly. He loathed the idea of not being able to achieve something as common as love when any other mundane ignoramus could love armfuls of people all at once without even trying.

First and foremost a young man of calculation, of eerily accurate predictions, he understood the lay of history. He saw what was coming next, the dangerous potential of one timeline. He knew it was going to hurt him more than anything else.

Unless he was clever.

Unless he could construct a bypass.

"In position!" his father ordered, backing away as the large green doors of the maze swung open. Fog wafted out, curling along his arms and legs like a dark sigh from the abyss.

But Albus had spent plenty of time in abysses. He stared down the narrow pathway, his blood boiling in anger, as if to bend and twist it to his will. It was littered with hidden monsters of his father's design. It was another test to pass. One after another after another.

"Ready…"

But there had to be an end, right? A point where he could have what he wanted. Because after twenty-three years of empty fuckery, after an interim of nearly becoming another pointless Dark Lord, Albus had _finally_ found what he wanted. The final obstacle standing in his way was that thing itself.

"Set…"

More often than not in life, he and Rose clashed. Didn't matter; he was cleverer and he would outwit her as he always did. He was keeping her forever; he had already decided. Clenching the Stone tightly in his palm, he gritted his teeth, drew down to a runner's position.

"GO!" his father shouted, and he took off into the maze, fire burning deep in his belly with a searing need to _win_.

X

X

X

Scorp's eyes flickered as he took another hit from Potter's not-so-secret stash of cocaine. Clinging to countertop, the world spun, and the floor shook. He was high, awkwardly so, in the middle of an earthquake.

"Seven hours since the last...Coordinates are changing," Potter droned from his sprawl on the sofa, his voice muffled by the book lying open over his face. It was a text titled _The Very First Magical Civilization_ that he'd had Lily, who worked as a translator, steal from the archives in the Department of the Preservation of History. There were more books splayed out on the floor beside him, but Scorpius only made out the names _Principles of Time Travel_ and Stephen Hawking's _A Brief History of Time._ "The Creature's already plotting another attack…what a glutton."

At the meaning behind the words, Scorp felt his stomach churn. He tucked it to the back of his mind. Clumsily, he wove to the living room space and crisscrossed his legs in front of the coffee table, spreading another line of ivory powder. "I shouldn't do this," he chuckled guiltily. "I've got work in the morning."

"Cancel," Potter replied, sounding bored. "Work is stupid. A terrible use of time. Your father has given you more than enough money to ruin any career ambitions."

Scorp snorted. "Sure, I'll go ahead and just _cancel_ on patients that I'm responsible for the health and livelihood of," he said dryly. "Not everything is about money."

"Blasphemous words from a Malfoy."

"I'm serious. My job gives me purpose. I _like_ it," he argued. It was a half-truth. He did like it but—

"It keeps you occupied between my tasks," Potter corrected him. "It is sufficient for your pressing boredom. But it's not your calling."

The corner of Scorp's mouth edged in annoyance. Or humor. He wasn't sure. "Course not. Helping you thieve, plot, and conspire against the law. That's my calling, right?"

The book twitched over Potter's face—a small, seismic expression of amusement.

"Yes," he answered.

"Bloody wanker," Scorp offered cheerily.

"On the subject of boredom, I'm already planning our next adventure," Potter said nonchalantly, flipping a page. "Request next month off."

"A month?! I can't take off an entire _month_ —"

"Yes you can. And I will tell you when I need you to start designing a Portkey—I need this one to work."

Scorp flushed; his Portkeys had a bad track record recently. "Is it somewhere dangerous?" He straightened his spine, narrowing his eyes. "Does it involve cannibals? I won't go if it involves cannibals."

"Dangerous, yes; Cannibals, no," Potter answered, but before he could divest anymore details, the bedroom door rattled, swung open. Scorp fearfully peered over to see his most favorite cannibal lug out, looking small and buried and ironically feminine inside the bulkiest of Potter's coats, completely ill-suited for the warming weather.

Rose noticed him. Blinked.

"Oh," she said, tepid. "You're here. And you're not running away from me. What a nice change."

Inwardly, Scorp was squealing like a terrified child. He had not known Rose was in, though he should have expected given the cousins' closeness. He was almost certain they were sleeping together. Whether they were getting along was a completely different question.

"Figured it was time I try getting over my fear of being eaten, just for our Rosie," he said— _tried_ —with a cheeky grin.

Rose's eyes narrowed.

"Don't call me that."

"What."

" _Our_ Rosie. I'm not some communal good you lot are passing around. I'm not an object to _use_ ," she hissed. There was a harsh, almost pained break in her voice: "I'm not some _whore."_

Scorp blanched, thinking _What the fuck?_

"No one said that," Potter said from his sunken position on the sofa, book covering face. His tone was cautious and even. "Malfoy meant it as a figure of endearment, nothing more...You know that."

"So you're taking his side then," she snapped at him, glaring, a teary redness forming at the edges of her eyes.

Potter's fingers clamped into the cushions, but he lay there, neutral. Careful.

She drew a breath. Exhaled. "Fine." She gave a tight, withering smile. "I don't care."

Potter swallowed, his throat working slow and visible above his collar. It was clear she did care, very, very much so.

"Where are you headed?" Scorp questioned, trying to hedge out of the horribly uncomfortable subject altogether.

Rose's mouth lifted slightly. "To Lorcan's."

"He's at work," Potter murmured from under his book. "At least learn his schedule so you can lie convincingly."

She smiled cruelly. "Then I guess I'm going on a business trip."

Potter sat upright. The book dropped to the floor, its pages crumpling at his feet. His elbows rested on his knees, the long line of his body suddenly collapsed into new angles, acute and obtuse.

He blinked excessively at the words. _Business trip._

"Rose," he said, her name a round weight in the low bell tone of his voice, and she almost hesitated. Almost turned to see his face. Almost.

Squaring her shoulders, she expelled a growling, almost feral sigh and paced out. The door slammed angrily behind her.

"You reckon she's..." Scorpius let the thought trail.

 _Shit_. Terror panged as the realization dawned.

Potter was still rubbing at his eyelids, trying to erase the moment. The _business trip_ comment had gotten to him.

Scorp laughed abjectly. He came to abrupt stop, mouth tense, serious. "You've got to use force. Stun her. Tie her to a chair so she can't. Please."

"Can't use force."

Scorp groaned; Potter's receding sociopathy was really becoming a problem. "Why?" he said, irritated. "Because she's _family_ , or because she's..."

Potter said nothing, slumping back on the sofa to stare at the ceiling. Neither a denial nor confirmation.

"Can't use force," he sighed.

X

X

X

 **The night before…**

His mouth was pursed, patient, on the edge of a smile, a joke, as he idly picked a leaf from her hair.

"You're covered in mud," he said, as if she didn't already know.

She lifted her arms, held them in offering.

His eyes gleamed with excitement. Fingers pried eagerly at her outer layers, yanking the scarf from her flushed neck, heaving the large, dirt-ridden coat off her shoulders and letting it fall in a heap to the ground.

"At least tell me who it was today, Rosie," he murmured, leaning in to dust his mouth warmly along her cheek.

"I don't have to tell you anything."

He stiffened. She felt his teeth in the hard press of his kiss. "I don't like you wandering at night. It's dangerous."

"For others."

"Who gives a damn about others." There was no graceful way to take her jeans off, and he didn't try. He unzipped her, hooked his fingers in the belt loops, and yanked the dirtied garment down her hips quickly. "I don't want _you_ out late. Is that understood?"

"I don't have to listen to you." She tilted her reddening face away.

"Yes you do." His hand forced it back; The green of his eyes pulled her in. "You _will_ listen," he ordered, irritated. "I can accept that you're killing— _look_ at me—But you do _not_ get caught."

He thought she was trailing blood into their flat. He thought she was leaving behind evidence. "I'm not reckless," she said, a bit offended at the assumption.

He laughed lowly.

"You've never been anything but reckless." He unbuttoned her blouse with a brutal efficiency, sliding out her arms, the fabric crumpling to the ground. "So who was it?" He cocked a brow. "Someone worthwhile, at least?"

"Just a criminal." It was better that she didn't learn names.

His brows lolled upwards.

"So this is vigilante work?" He sounded amused.

"No," she replied defiantly. "It's _dinner_."

He laughed again, this time with fondness, fingers dancing across her skin until he reached the hook of her bra. With a flick of his fingers, he undid the clasp and wrenched the garment from her front.

"And I'm the sentimental one," he said, grinning wickedly, stepping back to admire his handiwork. His eyes scoured her flushed skin before climbing back up to her face. "Hunting criminals. My Rosie Posie is _so_ cute." He gave her nipple an affectionate pinch.

She batted his hand away so hard the slap left a red mark. He blanched, offended.

"Go ahead. Call me a bitch. I don't care," she goaded, raising her chin. He stepped forward, his movements slow and careful.

"You do care," he replied, evenly. "And I'd never call you that."

"Yes you would." She stepped back as he drew close, but let his fingers gravitate to her hips, toying with the elastic of her underwear before taking hold. "Don't you remember? That one time. Back in Paisley's fortress, you called me a _stupid bitch._ "

 _That one_ _time._

Albus stared, annoyed, unnervingly calm, just waiting her pettiness out. His eyes kept darting down.

"...And don't even think I forgot how _cruel_ you were as a child," she laughed bitterly, riled by his lack of resistance. "I might be fucked up now but my memory works just _fine_."

Sure, she was bringing up ancient history, just to have _something_ to fight about, but that wasn't what pricked the nerve.

He soared forward. Fingers tightened at her hips, pinning her to the wall behind her.

"Stop saying _fucked up_ ," he grunted, settling his weight against her, making her knees crumble. "I hate that phrase. I hate when you—" He inhaled sharply. "You're not. _We're_ not...We're fine—I'll fix everything and then we'll leave and go somewhere sunny and all this will be—" He buried his hot mouth against hers with a groan, pouring all his anger and frustration and _desperation_ into the kiss.

 _Better_ , the word he left out.

X

X

X

Hugo crept past his sister's sleeping form to the front hall and the lamp-lit kitchen. He dragged a chair from the table to Albus' cluttered shelves above the oven, wincing at the scrape of wooden legs over tile, and when he stood on the edge, he was just tall enough to reach the top shelf.

The potions book was heavier than it looked, and it let loose a low sigh of dust when Hugo dropped it onto the kitchen table. He turned to the first page and breathed in the bitter smell of old herbs and older paper.

The first few pages were recipes for standard healing charms, some handwritten in Al's neat script on the blank pages. He turned each brittle page carefully, with the tips of his fingers. Soon he came to others, for the Blight of Baldness, said one entry. Aid for Nightmares, said another. Hugo had seen these pages before, had carried back armfuls of ingredients from the apocathery and watched closely as Albus prepared decoctions of valerian root for sleeplessness and willow bark for pain.

"What are you looking for?" Albus called, from across the room.

Hugo glanced over at his cousin, who was working at his desk, then snuck an alarmed look back at the door behind which his sister was sleeping.

 _Something for her brain,_ he mouthed urgently.

Hugo had noticed cracks, just like the others. For the first days of her return, Rose was normal. Then, slowly, the little emotional vacancies in her brain started to show. She grew furious over the silliest things, like if Hugo didn't do a thing correctly or made a joke she didn't like. Sometimes she screamed and broke things. She confided scary thoughts in Hugo, like wanting to drown herself. Sometimes she said she was going to kill Scorpius or kill Uncle Harry. Other times she said she'd kill Albus if he kept annoying her. She said all this in a tone that was not at all joking.

Hugo had, terrified, tearfully, confided these details in Albus before.

"She won't," the older boy had replied, between potion stirs, perfectly at ease. "If she kills everyone, who would she have?"

This was a good point, and it had eased Hugo. Albus understood more about the motives behind murder than anyone else, and he had been looking out for Rosie for the past two months, which had to be a difficult chore, but it meant he knew Rose—and her tendencies—best of all. He regularly made a very potent brew for Rose that was meant to substitute for magic, but it had come to Hugo's attention she was skimping on drinking it.

"We'll keep making it," Albus had assured him. "She should have the option available, shouldn't she?"

"Can't you just _force_ her to drink it?"

Albus had blinked, as if the question was offensive.

"Of course I can't," he replied, eyes narrowing into the cauldron.

"Why not?"

Albus had not yet given him an answer.

Lately, the older boy had been obsessed with the past. Scrolls swept down his desk, torn, withered parchment, frayed at edges but preserved with great care. Scrolls that Lily had likely stolen from her work for her brother. Hugo watched Albus' hand move across paper, translating with a speed Lily could never match.

"Hey Al..." Hugo began and then grew sheepish.

"Go on," prompted the older boy, quill halting.

Hugo glanced cautiously at the closed door again. "Will she ever be normal again?" he whispered.

"Yes," came the curt response. "I'm working on it. Be patient."

Hugo stared down at the potions book for a pained minute. The answer was insufficient, but he nodded his head with such vehement force, it made his entire mop of curls shake. Tears pricked his eyes.

"She gets so…" he struggled to say the words. "Sometimes it's— _hard_ to be around."

He glanced up and Albus was still on pause. Processing.

"I don't even want to be _around_ her anymore," Hugo continued, his voice congested, furiously wiping at his eyes. "Why is she _like_ this?"

Albus sat hard-lipped and sharp-featured and _composed_ despite the emotion lurking in the depths of his clear, dark eyes. "C'mhere," he ordered. He spun in his chair to face Hugo.

Hugo slunk over, awkwardly, with the book. Albus took it from his hands, uttered a ' _there's nothing useful in there, I've looked'_ and put it aside. Arms on knees, he stared the younger boy down intently.

"Hugo," he said, his voice level and serious. "She spent a year in the Other Realm. She was hurt. But we can fix it."

"And what if we can't?" Fresh tears sprung in Hugo's eyes.

Albus answered with a question of his own, his voice steady, his gaze intent, "When you were younger, and you were unwell, what did Rose always do?"

"Take care of me," Hugo sniffled.

"And now that your sister is unwell, what will you do?"

"Take care of her." Hugo nodded, teary-eyed. "How do I do that?"

Albus smiled thinly. "By not isolating her."

"But it's _hard_ to be around her," Hugo whined.

Albus was quiet, considering. When he spoke again, his voice was graver.

"Do you know that Rose almost didn't come back?" he said, quietly. "Do you know how she was convinced?"

Hugo shook his head furiously, face flushed, his curls bouncing.

"I told her _you_ sent me—the second she heard your name, something snapped on her face. She was normal for a minute…" Albus trailed off. "Tell me what that means, Hugo."

"Means she loves me." Hugo's voice came meek and muffled and ashamed. "And that… she's still in there."

X

X

X

His lips found the soft inner flesh of her thigh—she inhaled shakily, pleasure and anxiety curling in her gut.

"Try to relax," he instructed, kissing a tingling trail upward until he was at her groin. "You're already slick...with such little effort..."

Ignoring the jab, she anxiously curled her fingers into his hair. "Al..." she panted. "I have to think..."

"No need," he said. She could feel his every breath inside her thighs. "All you have to do is cum—even the dullest can manage it, I promise."

Her cheeks burned bright red. "Hold on just a minute..."

He raised his chin to observe her, over the plane of her stomach, and her legs quaked with the intensity of his stare. He buried his nose against her clothed, wet crotch, inhaling deeply. "Lovely," he said, pressing a light kiss. "You smell...almost sweet."

Haunting memories came forward and her knees trembled, nearly coming unhinged as unexpected terror spread throughout her midsection.

"Stop," she breathed shakily. "I can't—I'm not in the mood."

He smirked against the thin fabric, making her cunt twitch. "Your body tells me you are," he breathed.

"I said _stop_ ," she gritted out. "You still need my _permission_."

Her eyes tightened. She exhaled sharply, trying to smother her welling anxiety.

When she opened her lids, she saw a sinking face. He looked sullen. Embarrassed.

He crawled up, leaning his forehead against the hinge of her sprawled arm, thinking of a salvaging response—unaccustomed to this type of rejection. He peeked out from her shoulder at her, finally settling on: "Sorry."

She deflated. "It's okay," she whispered, tracing her fingers along his face. "Asking is important, okay?"

He nodded, storing the information in his mind, tense and cautious. The question hung in the air, in his eyes, pupils blown wide with lust.

"It's okay," she repeated, instead of answering, and reached past the fear lingering between their bodies to link her fingers through his.

X

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X

She liked to watch him, when he thought she couldn't see. In their time living together, it became a mutual obsession. He liked stripping her, disarming her with his good looks, with expertly delivered touches, making her warm and wet and weak-kneed for him—vulnerable. She also liked him when the shutters were down. It was when she learned new things about him.

For instance, every morning, right after he had brushed his teeth, Albus spent thirty minutes practicing facial expressions in the mirror. She watched from her side of the bed, through the crack in the bathroom doorway. She'd known him all her life and somehow she'd never known this about him.

There was a dead, lifeless, flinty quality to how he regarded himself, an eerie blankness. Bringing his fingertips up, he tugged the ends of his rigid mouth into a smile, relaxed, pleasant. Mostly convincing. Convincing _enough_. His eyes were cold and pale but their pull was like gravity, and he blinked until he could make them brighten, light up his face in some artificial joy.

It wasn't always happiness though. That was just the hardest. Other times he practiced faces of concern, remorse, surprise. _Masks_ , she thought of them.

( _It was easy to forget that he was the same as her—the same mold, the same pitfalls, the same fears. The same deficiencies_ )

"Is it new?" she asked about it one evening. They sat side by side against the headboard of the bed, thighs touching, his hand clasped possessively at her knee, reading separate books. She was halfway through a spell manual. Albus was deep in a large volume titled _The Mechanics of Time Travel._

"Is what new?"

"The pretending."

The statement jarred him, tensing the muscles of his neck. He turned to her.

"You want to stare at a blank face all day?" he offered bluntly.

"I mean." She bit back a hurt frown. "I just want you to be yourself around me."

He rolled his eyes at the platitude. "I am me," he said dryly, flipping a page. "Not every skill comes to me easily. I practice the ones that don't."

"I never knew having emotions was a skill."

"Sure it is," he said, perfectly content with his understanding of the matter. The end of his mouth flickered a little, mustering a dry amusement. "And now you know."

X

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X

 **Half the update** , **really just meant to build into the next chapter.**

 **Quick note: the 'business trip' line refers to how Harry disappeared for long periods of time on Albus by saying he was going on a business trip. It's a cruel reference to how Harry essentially abandoned Albus as a kid.**

 **Let me know what you think!**


	53. Learn pt 2

Lily was beginning to worry.

Three months had passed since Rosie's return to civilization and the girl was constantly looking over her shoulder as if she expected to be attack. She was reclused, unenthused, hostile, with most of her time passing holed up in Al's flat, both days and nights.

Rosie clung to Al, made no secret of it when the little sister was around. She grabbed at his hands, crawled into his lap, even kissed him square on the lips. He'd put his arms around her, lower his head and kiss her back, a deep, sustained and private kiss. Lily would move away quietly to the other end of the room, toward the window. While she drank a glass of water from the kitchen tap, the kiss continued, binding the couple into their solitude. She felt obliterated, expunged from the room, and was relieved.

Lily, of course, knew the dangers of clinging to Albus like this. After a long bout of therapy, Lily was on normal terms with her brother. But her brother, for the genius he was, was a brick-wall, and existed mostly in the iron-clad fortress of his mind. He was the wrong person to deal with the emotional problems Rosie had. He had to be, didn't he?

Lily brought up these concerns with her dad, who told her to _leave it alone_. He said Rose and Al had developed these emotions as a coping device, between the horror and battles, and the only way they were going to learn was after realizing it couldn't work _without_ the horror and battles. This was their father's prediction.

When Lily relayed this information to Albus, her brother raised out an insolent middle finger, and said Dad _'was an imbecile'_ and _'a moral hypocrite'_ and _'a shit excuse for a father'_ and to tell him to _'Go to hell'._

So of course, Lily worried.

Lily was not close to Rose like she was with the rest of her family, but she quickly learned that Rose wasn't close to _anyone at all_. Rose said she had a few friends back when she was an auror, but now she was 'dead', so she couldn't go see them.

This was when Lily started _trying_ with the girl.

She apparated in one afternoon to find Rosie hunched over a cauldron, working alone. Her fingers, blackened, nails chipped, been had barely healed from her time in the Other realm and already they were stained yellow with potion.

"I'm making something that removes blood stains," she explained, at Lily's nosy stare.

"Your period came? I could just _give_ you something for that."

"….right, for my period," Rose said, clearing her throat with a peculiar sheepishness. "I just like to make these things myself."

Lily slid into the chair across from her. "Ew, you've covered in potions muck," she said, wrinkling her nose.

Rose flushed, and Lily felt bad for embarrassing the girl. "Just stand me against the wall and blast me with a hose," she laughed self-deprecatingly, wiping a bit off her nose.

"Let's try something more civilized," Lily said, with the edge of a smirk. "How about a bath?" In a sing songy voice she added: "I brought over bath salts."

Rose's eyes lit up.

Something Lily had learned: when given the opportunity Rose could show enthusiasm for things. But she didn't seek these things out herself.

After a thorough wash, Lily helped dry her hair and the smile curving on her cousin's face couldn't be more genuine. She eyed Lily's hair, bright ringlets piled on the head with a few soft spirals about her face, with admiration.

"Your hair is so pretty," she said with a wistful smile. "...Mine's all tattered."

"It's growing back though," Lily promised, running fingers of coconut oil through the other girl's less vibrant strands. "You're going to look normal in no time."

Rose stared gloomily at her reflection, shoulders slumped. "I used to be pretty—or just average, I guess," she said. "Now I'm a cockroach."

"You're not a cockroach," Lily laughed, confused. "That's silly."

Rosie's eyes shifted to the side and became glazed with a layer of tears. She blinked, and they dripped from her eyelids, slid down her cheeks.

She bit her lip tightly. "I swear I used to be so different Lily," she said, her voice suddenly choked. "I used to be so much better—Now I've got no control—I get angry so _easily_."

Lily gave her shoulders a comforting squeeze, before slipping into the seat beside her.

"Anger issues aren't terribly uncommon," she said, quietly. "Talking about it can only help." Therapy specifically had helped Lily with her own issues.

"Sometimes I talk to Tom."

"Who's Tom?"

"My...Imaginary friend. In my head. I made him up. When I was on the Other Side...He always makes me feel better."

"Well, what does 'Tom' tell you?"

"He tells me to be patient. That I'm going to get stronger...He always tells me to eat more."

Lily smiled. "Well, Tom sounds precious—A bloke that tells you to eat _more_." She snorted dryly. "I think we all need a friend like Tom."

"Tom is helpful," Rose whispered guiltily, staring into her lap, sullen and frail. She rattled her head furiously. "I don't want to keep talking to him—But I can't stop—I don't know _how_ —"

"It's _okay_ ," insisted Lily, clasping a hand on the girl's thigh, trying to be supportive. "Look, keep talking to this 'Tom' if it helps—You're allowed to do _whatever_ you want. However you want to process your feelings and emotions is _completely_ valid." This was a phrase Lily had heard in therapy once.

"I appreciate that Lily...Please don't tell anyone about Tom."

"Of course I won't."

X

X

X

She knew, in the back of her mind, in the small, secure space she locked away from him, that she was meant to fear Voldemort. Not allow to call her Rose Pose. Not rely on him so readily. Not allow him to read her every thought, every whim, every desire…

And she **_did_** fear _Voldemort_.

But **_Tom_** was different.

She did not have a choice. She heard his voice as if it were her own, echoing in the back of his brain: husky plea thick with plans of vengeance and destruction, fingers twining around the spiders' threads that he already held in his hands.

 _This is a symbiosis…a symphony…a duet._

 _Or Life and Death itself._

He was not wrong. She had sworn an oath, had promised him Resurrection. In exchange, he vowed to kill her when it became necessary to put her down—after she'd killed the Creature.

 _Life_ in exchange for _Death_.

That was the agreement. Simple, succinct, and the core of their bond; the Dark Lord had said nothing about requiring more. In fact, Tom had told her—quite firmly, at the time—that he had no interest in anything else.

Inevitably, there will come a point in all lies when somebody will realize that no one is quite sure of the facts. She wasn't quite sure where the deceit stemmed from: was it his declaration and the claims of disinterest? Or should the blame be pinned on the ghostly shell that the wizard waltzed around in, cursed to observe the world as if through a looking glass. Distant, otherworldly. Bored.

"How do I know that I can trust you?"

"…I was not aware that you desired my trust, my pet."

"I don't. But I need it."

"Why so?"

"…power without an accomplice, while still power—"

"Is useless."

"Don't interrupt me! And that's not what I was going to say!"

"Temper, temper, Rose…And wasn't it?"

A pause.

"I apologize profusely for my assumptions. Now, why is my little cockroach bothered so?"

"…I've been thinking. If I bring you back into the world, and you betray me. If you don't help me kill the Creature, or if you don't kill me, or if you _leave_ me—"

"Never. I will be by my little darling's side until the game is won, until I hear the word 'checkmate'."

"Is that so?"

"I swear it."

"Then 'checkmate.'"

A pause.

"Will you leave now? Maybe find another witch to haunt?"

"My little pet is trying to make a point."

"Yes."

"You think that I will twist your words to my advantage."

"I'm sure you've twisted the words of many others before."

"Do you believe that I will do so again?

"It's human nature to take the path that's the simplest and yields the best results, isn't it?"

"And just how… _human_...do you think I am?"

X

Tom was in control of his spirit. Permanently. Enviably. He _had_ to be—his spirit served as the strings that manipulated his once-corporeal flesh: The mask which concealed the pounding of his heart, the racings of his mind… And so it was the Dark Lord's fault that the young girl was losing control of hers. He knew her heart better than she may have known it herself—she had presented it to him on a silver platter, carved for consumption.

"I know you don't care about me," she grunted out, bitterly, heartbrokenly, hands clasped around shovel, scooping dirt over another corpse she had killed. Blood spattered across her shoe.

"And I know you don't really want care," he hummed in a voice almost too low to be overheard. It flitted at her right ear like a winged creature. "You have grown beyond such petty, childish needs, Rose. Your evolution has been so very...fascinating. I couldn't be more enamored by you."

"I wish you'd stop talking to me like that," she complained, shivering as he floated his cold arm through hers. "With that voice."

Dark eyes glittering, Tom grinned widely, taking this as invitation to continue.

"When you bring me back, you'll see just how formidable of an accomplice I am...How much power I can wield, all for you." He circled her, slowly, shoulders drawn up around his neck like a bird of prey. "How very alike you and I are...And how _beautiful_ you are to me."

She stopped shoveling to stare at him sadly. Hurt by the words.

"Telling lies is cruel," she said, wiping her sweaty brow. "I know what I look like."

"Any eloquent man would attest that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, my pet."

"I don't want you to be eloquent, I want you to be honest," she said sourly. "Don't say things to me that you don't mean."

In his cleverness, Tom gave a smile and said nothing at all.

X

The next time they spoke, it was she who began the conversation:

"Have you ever actually loved anyone, Tom?"

The ghost hovered on the bench beside her. The question made his amiability lapse just long enough for Rose to glean the cold, dead look in his eyes.

"No," came the bored reply.

"Did you ever have anyone that mattered to you?" she whispered. "When you were alive."

A pause.

"Nagini," he replied, curt. "I had her since I was a child. You could say I was attached...I couldn't keep myself from feeling an odd loss when she died.

"Your pet," she commiserated. "I'm sorry."

He turned to her, leaning in, ghost-lips hovering so close to her own that she thought she felt their coldness, and then she rapidly drew away, in shock, ashamed. He did not move, eyes gleaming with some sort of humor.

"She was the most loyal creature I had the pleasure of owning," he spoke in a soft, lethal voice. "Love holds little importance to me, but you'll find that I value loyalty immensely. Reliability is... comforting to me. There was no one on whom I could rely when I was growing up...I did not have a Rose Pose."

She stared at him in a sort of heartbroken despair.

"Tom..."

He passed his ghostly fingers through hers. "Yes, dearest?"

"Nothing."

X

X

 **X**

Occasionally, after a long, arduous training session with the Stone, Harry could trap his son into a conversation that _wasn't_ about magic.

"Have you considered teaching Albus?"

The boy lay sprawled in the grass, exhausted, in a heap of sweat, catching his breath. He drained a water bottle over his face and hair, before crushing it with his prosthetic fingers and tossing it away. Shuffling a cigarette from his trouser pocket, he arrogantly lit it.

"No," came the dull, flat response. A dismissal. A _stop talking to me._ A _you have done your bit now_ _leave me the fuck alone._

"Why not?" the father said, not deterred yet. Lifting the ends of his robes, he crouched and crisscrossed on the grass. "Hugo says you enjoy teaching him spells. Says you're good at it. And Lily says you try to help her with Runes even when she tell you to go away…You definitely have an interest in it."

A sulking pause.

"Teaching is for tired, old men," he sneered, blowing a contemptuous stream of smoke. "That's _you_. _You_ teach."

"You know there's an opening for the Defense position," Harry threw out, just to keep testing the murky waters of fatherhood. "They're looking for _young_ blood—And you're first on their list."

"They're mistaken if they think I won't teach First Years how to use the Unforgivables," came the cold, biting laugh. "The best defense is a ruthless offense."

His father quickly—rightfully—crossed Defense off his mental list.

"What about Potions, it's ..."

His father crossed off Potions from his mental list, realizing just as quickly how many recipes existed for dangerous and illegal brews that Albus could instill in young minds.

"Give me Divination," Albus said with a black smile.

Harry stared at him with something near treacherous offense

"Don't stoop that low just to spite me," he accused.

Albus chuckled lowly. He also hated Divination; that was beside the point.

"Teaching is a very noble profession. Just…consider doing part time," his father said earnestly. "Even just one day a week…It'll keep you busy." _And out of trouble._ "I mean, look, Malfoy's boy is a walking hazard—his father's words, I swear, not mine—but if he can take a break from being your mate to occasionally better the lives of others, then _surely_ , you can spare an afternoon a week to do the same for some kids."

Albus tilted his chin, surveying his father with dull, glazed eyes. Admonishing the thinly veiled efforts to mold him into a productive member of society.

"One afternoon," he assented. "And I want to teach History of Magic."

X

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X

Most fights ended up on the bed, in a tangle of limbs, desperately trying to make up.

"I'm going to be a professor," he murmured, leaning in, nuzzling the underside of her jaw, skating his teeth over the shell of her ear. "They'll call me Professor Potter. You should too."

"Cute," she breathed out, her fingers mapping the scars along his shoulder blades. "But no. Never."

His mouth nipped against the hollow of her neck. "You never do what I tell you," he grumbled, scattering wet kisses across her collarbone. "You always oppose me."

"I just can't see you in a position of authority."

He stopped, staring at her face, very clearly offended. "I was almost the Dark Lord," he informed bluntly. "The most powerful being in the country. What would you have called me then?"

"Cute," she answered, with ease, and he groaned in hilarious despair, his head dipping against her bare chest.

X

X

X

Why Albus had chosen to teach the most tedious, textbook subject available at Hogwarts was beside his father, who had hated History in his youth.

But Albus didn't care what his father thought. Outside of training him, his father's thoughts and opinions were irrelevant. Teaching Defense or Potions provided him no benefit—He knew all the spells and brews on the intended curriculum. It would have been a mere diffusion of knowledge from his brain to younger brains. And what was the _point_ of that?

History, on the other hand, was expansive. Infinite. And there were certain details imbedded in the past that needed further investigation.

Light flooded into the classrooms as Albus charmed the curtains open. He was dressed smartly in crisp, black robes and stood in front of the large mahogany desk, leaning against it, flipping through a textbook, as children scattered in and took their seats.

Albus snapped his book shut and glanced up, sharp eyes raking around the room and taking in the flushed, chattering faces. Thankfully, these children looked older than the set of children that had come before.

He cleared his throat meaningfully.

A silence fell.

"And what year are you all," he inquired. He was meant to know this information but had not paid attention to his schedule or bothered to learn the old curriculum. He would be devising his own.

"We're fourth years," piped a young voice.

Fourth Years would have to be fourteen or fifteen-year-olds. The ideal age to be instilled with information with which they could accomplish interesting things. His Rose Pose had created the Resurrection Spell at age fifteen.

A hand rose high in the air.

"What happened to Binns," quipped a voice.

"Died," Albus stated with no inflection, folding his arms. "Next question."

Another hand eagerly rose.

"How can a ghost die, Professor Potter?"

Albus gave a proud smirk, then shifted around so that he wasn't blocking the chalkboard. At least this class was more observant than the last.

"You are correct, ghosts at present moment cannot die—but certainly a spell could be devised to kill off a ghost, no? The boundaries that exist between Life and Death are vague at best and there is nothing—I assure you—that is outside the realm of possibility," he intoned. "It only takes a curious mind…Perhaps one of you will someday design a spell that can kill off ghosts, for there are certainly ghosts that exist that need to be killed off...I look forward to seeing it."

After his—what he thought was an—intellectually encouraging speech, a fierce number of hands shot up. Albus selected the young girl sitting in the front.

"Will you be teaching us to kill things like you killed the Dark Lord, Professor Potter?" piped the precocious female voice.

He stared unblinkingly at the child. They were already veering so very off track.

"Not quite, but we are going to be learning other interesting things," he answered, and pulled out a Time-Turner from his bag. "I will take a more practical approach to teaching history than Binns. If you have any issues, you may drop this course immediately."

When he turned around, eyes in the room were alarmingly wide, but no one lifted from their seats and scurried out. This was an exceptionally bold group of children.

"Who can tell me what this does?" Albus queried, holding up the device.

"It gives the wearer the ability to travel back in time. You've just got to spin the—center thingy."

"Sufficient," Albus said dryly. "Five points to—whatever house you're in."

The young boy boastfully gestured at the Gryffindor emblem on his chest. Since it was not Slytherin, Albus did not waste the energy to award points.

The hands in the room did not seem to be going down.

"Aren't Time-Turners illegal to possess?"

"Yes they are," Albus said boredly. Questions about the law were dull. This was not a Civics course. "Next question."

With an exasperated sigh, he selected another hand.

"Where did you get one, Professor Potter?"

There were many advantages to knowing an Unspeakable. "Borrowed it. Next question."

More hands. Another tedious selection. How his namesakes had managed to keep their attention during this repetitive job for so long was already beyond Albus.

"Does the Headmistress know you have a Time-Turner, Professor Potter?"

Albus leant slyly over his table. He stared across at the young, impressionable faces.

"Is anyone going to tell?" he asked, raising a sharp brow. "Because I can leave and they can bring Binns back and you can all pretend to stay awake through his stories."

All the young heads in the room rattled fiercely.

"Excellent—You may put your books away. There is nothing inside them that is useful to me. They contain no information that is not already known… In this class we will investigate the very beginning of the History of Magic. We will uncover just how Magic came to be—We will find out together."

X

X

X

"Grading papers?" his father asked, glancing over his shoulder.

Albus bit back a pleased smirk. "My Friday afternoon class is full of brilliant young minds—Look at what a student turned in."

Harry stared. "This isn't a paper."

"No. These are spell designs for an enchantment to kill a ghost." Someone had, evidently, been _very_ inspired by his speech in class. "Wrong but ingeniously so…it's an attempt made at spell construction by a fifteen-year-old. A _child_."

"They're absolutely stunning," Harry remarked. "And dangerous." His eyes narrowed. "Wait a minute…You teach History."

Albus grinned.

"It's not even the assignment."

His grin grew broader. "Exactly." He drew his quill, not hesitating for a second to mark the assignment with an 'O'. Leaning back in his chair, he pressed his palms to the end of his table. "I hope this next generation…I hope they're brilliant. Better than anything before. I hope they do amazing things. I hope I get to see them do it."

"You're taking your job seriously," Harry mused. " _Very_ seriously."

"It's a nice hobby, yes," Albus mumbled happily to himself as he turned to the next paper.

X

X

X

The bedroom was breathlessly cold; the light of dawn shone pale from the open window, casting long, shifting shadows.

He sat silently on the edge of the bed, his face turned to the wall. She studied the stiff line of his shoulders in silence, and for a moment she considered simply closing her eyes and slipping back into sleep.

Instead she reached a hand toward his, murmuring his name.

"Al...Too early."

"Work," he grunted.

"You teach in the afternoon."

"That is my hobby," he clarified, with a stiffness to his voice. "I'm talking about my _work_."

She scowled.

"Both work and hobbies banned, now _back in bed_ ," she ordered, yanking at his arm.

He turned to her. "Why banned? You have your hobby, I have mine—and mine is less bloody," he said, with a low, wicked laugh. "And you know what else?" he whispered, leaning in conspiratorially. "I think I'm even beginning to like children."

"Sure you are."

She lifted slightly to wrap her arms around his shoulders and kiss him firm on the lips. Albus seemed to melt into the embrace, his body collapsing against hers. "What's that for," he exhaled, a sleepy smile curving on his features. "I thought you were mad."

"I'm not mad," she said, frowning. "You must think I'm always mad."

He was quiet.

"Sometimes I think you hate me."

"Why."

"I don't know. But I know what hate feels like."

She blinked. Her eyes stung with tears.

"I love you, stupid—now stay in bed," she hissed, wrapping her arms tighter around his torso and forcibly tugging him in.

A smile beamed across Al's features that was brighter than anything she'd seen him practice in the mirror.

"93 days."

" _Stay in bed._ "

He burrowed into the sheets against her, cupped her face, and kissed her eagerly, happily. "Now the tally begins again," he whispered against her lips and she groaned.

"Stop counting," she hissed. "What did I do to deserve this?"

"You did everything to deserve this," he said, with a playfully wicked laugh, capturing the little fists she tried to smack him with. He kissed the crinkle between her brows. "You've been chummy with me for years—This is your punishment." His hands pinned her fists to the bed, and he straddled her, eyes bright with mischief. "You can fight but you won't escape."

"You're so irritating," she huffed, tussling against his hold. "Do you even know what you sound like?"

"I'm fine with irritating you to get what I want." He smirked.

"That's coercion, Albus. Tactical bullying."

He gave a heated laugh. "Yes, it is," he replied, and leant down to bury his nose in her hair, inhaling deeply. "You smell different...Coconut...It's so nice..." he breathed.

"It's just a thing for my hair."

"I like it," he said, pressing a warm kiss to her cheek. He leant on his forearms, settling into a comfortable position on top where he wasn't crushing her, and looked at her intently, inquisitively. "Do you know...Some children can very interesting. They're not all terrible, I've realized. Some of my students remind me of you."

"Do they?" she murmured, eyes wavering from sleep. "Because they're mean and horrid."

"No, because they're curious and brilliant...there's something nice about seeing so much enthusiasm in someone because of ...me, I suppose."

She opened her eyes, frowning.

He averted his gaze. "I've been thinking about children a lot recently."

Her heart sank. This was not a subject she'd ever thought would cross Al's mind.

"Maybe later in life, you can have one," she offered, in a voice that was altogether politely removed from the situation.

He searched her face, reading her meaning, keeping his own expressively neutral.

"I don't want one," he said, mechanically.

She didn't respond.

"I'd be a terrible father," he added.

"I think you'd be better than yours."

His shoulders gave a palpable wince.

"That's a low bar," he said with a wheezing laugh, his voice not at all humored. "An orphanage would be better. A pack of wolves. An ashtray."

Then he was quiet for a second. He buried his face into the pillow beside her head. "I would never use the Cruciatus on my son," he croaked, in a muffled voice. "The world could end and I wouldn't..." He peered out of the pillow at her. "I'm saying all this hypothetically."

"We can talk in hypotheticals," she reassured weakly, realizing these were things he needed to get off his chest.

Albus nodded in weary appreciation. "Thank you," he whispered, pecking her cheek again.

"For what."

"I don't know...This. I didn't think I'd get to have this."

She laughed. "What's 'this'. It's not a whole lot."

He frowned.

"I think…" He spoke uncertainly at first and stopped. She heard a soft sound, the kind made when the tongue unglues from the roof of one's mouth after a long time.

"I'm the happiest I've ever been," he admitted. "I finally have you. Finally. I didn't think—"

He broke off, growing solemn. He buried his face in the pillow again. "Didn't think I'd ever have you," came his voice, muffled, quiet. "Not more than a sister. Feels too good to be real."

She laughed miserably. "But I'm horrid."

"It's okay. It's because of the hunger—I'll fix it."

While she didn't believe him, she nodded and shifted inward so that their chests were pressed together. She curled her arm around him and put her hand on his back, rubbing it in soothing circles. "Now what else about your son," she said, quietly. "All hypothetically."

"I would teach my son magic but I wouldn't...wouldn't push like my father did with me. A dependency on magic is not at all conducive to a stable..." He broke off, squeezing his eyes. "I would want him to be like Scorp."

She didn't comment. "What would you name him? "

"I don't care about names." His prosthetic fingers ran along her jaw, cupping her chin. "Whatever my Rose Pose wants."

Her heart gave an odd flinch. "This hypothetical couldn't have me, Al."

He sunk further into the pillow.

She tilted her face away to stare at the window, awkwardly, miserably. Pressing her thighs together.

"Maybe someday you'll meet someone you can have kids with," she allowed, in a fragile tone. "Who isn't just your fucked-up, washed-up cousin." Her voice broke, eyes welling with hot tears. "And then you can have a proper family with her."

He glanced up, jaw clenched in outrage.

Tears streamed, blurring her eyesight as he pulled her close, arms wrapping around her back to fully embrace her. "Always crying," he teased softly, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to laugh or weep harder. "You made yourself cry; I didn't even do anything."

She sniffled. "You can change your mind about me in the future," she croaked. "It's okay if you do. People do that."

"I've decided that won't happen."

"You can't just _decide_ these things."

"I can and I have," he said, tone tightening. "I can decide whatever I please. I can make _whatever I want_ happen."

"Right," she said, laughing tearfully. "Because you're not human. You're a god, right?"

"Finally you get it," he replied, smirking. "Now, ready to hear my grand plan for us?"

"Sure."

"First thing—every good deception needs a false alias. A new surname. "Potter" and "Weasley" are too dangerous to use anywhere in the world. Second—A remote location. "Sunny" is your only requirement, so perhaps an island locale, where there's little chance of recognition. The sea and the sun...that's a nice combination, isn't it? I think Hugo would like it too."

She wiped her wet eyes and frowned. All these plans were silly. None of them had a hope in hell of working out. She hated that Albus was expecting her to indulge these fantasies of a happily-ever-after with him.

"Have you told Hugo this is what you want to do yet? Leave England."

"I'll wait until after I've fixed the hunger and all our other problems," he said, kissing her wet lashes. "But I doubt Hugo will need much coer—convincing," he said. "Any names come to mind?"

"Not Evans," she laughed tearfully.

"Never again." He smirked. "But the more ordinary, the better. A name that isn't attached to anything. That doesn't stand out."

"A muggle name, right?"

He nodded.

Indulging the thought, if only in the absurdity of the moment, Rose began thinking of amalgamations of Potter and Weasley.

Wotter? No.

Wea... No. 'Wa' sounded better.

Waters? Walter? She liked the 'I' sound.

A common surname.

Wal...

"Walker," she whispered, after a second.


	54. (a very important date)

**So. The last three chapters may have felt meandering but I swear I'm building to something cool. I recommend reading the chapters right before this one (if you've forgotten details) and paying attention to the conversations around 'masks/games/deceit'.**

 **X**

Professorship, unexpectedly, brought an extraordinary change in Albus.

It opened his eyes to…possibilities.

For years he had struggled with the question of higher purpose— _What's the meaning of my life? Why do I exist?—_ He hadn't wanted the fate that his father had ascribed to him. He did not want to be a puppet Dark Lord and he did not want to take over the world and he did not want to be a martyr and he did not want to _save_ the world. He did not want to be his father and he did not want to be his opposite, Tom Riddle. He disliked both—He hated them.

These were the old roles, the petty games of wrinkled generations, games that always ended the same way, games where the outcome—the victor—was controlled by the _Creature_. Playing these games was why previous generations had failed. It was because they did not understand the threat they faced. Albus had survived against this threat, many times, had lost his arm and almost his Rose Pose. He'd had his body _torn to shreds_. First and foremost a young man of calculation, he saw the budding potential of one dangerous timeline—the inevitability of it—he saw that history was trapped in a repetitive loop. War. Peace. War. Peace.

Could it be swayed?

Could it be _changed_?

[no]

It was too dangerous to change the past. He'd been reading the works of predecessors: Any minor augmentation would skew the course of history so drastically that it could lead to Albus never even being born. The past could be transcended, it could be learned from, but it could _not_ be _changed_.

This meant the answers lay in the **_future_**.

It took Professorship—the time he spent teaching, arguably the most important time in his life—to pay attention to the _next_ generation.

He wanted to teach History of Magic, because it was important to learn the trends of history, learn the origins of their civilization, to learn just how the Stone came to be. It was important to do all this to prepare for the _future_.

His Friday afternoon class was special in a way very few classes are. Maybe by coincidence, or maybe it was fate, but somehow Albus had received a group of exactly the type of individuals that he wanted to teach. Unlike his pouty sister, these were eager, brilliant young minds that took to his teachings like wildfire—and did not have a problem with the more innovative, morally-ambiguous aspects of magic. They did not have a problem breaking the rules that _needed_ to be broken.

And it was then that Albus began to see the importance of children.

The importance of _continuity_.

 **X**

 **X**

 **X**

They were playing a new game now.

The weather had been so warm in recent days, the air velvety on her pale skin. It was the sort of weather where it felt wrong to stay inside hunched over a cauldron. Clouds drifted by on the most relaxed of breezes, helping her eyes appreciate the bluebird sky all the more. The rain, when it sprinkled, alighted as softly as the shoes of a ballet dancer, adorning and rejuvenating the only stage that mattered.

In between working as a professor, training with his father, and all his other illegal projects, Albus was taking her out on dates. According to him, it was what people did when they were a couple, and they were now part of that select category, and therefore, this was what they _had_ to do. It made little sense. Dates were for people trying to get to know each other, while she and Al knew each other, absurdly, disturbingly _well_

"Why do we _have_ to do this?"

"We'll make it a game so we don't get bored," he said smoothly, yanking her by the hand through the throngs of well-dressed muggles waiting outside the play theatre. "The goal of this game…" she saw the corner of his mouth twist upwards, "is to fool everyone. Now come along."

Silky dress fabric sashayed at her knees as she staggered behind him, huffing and red-faced, feeling awkward, out-of-place, bumping the elbows of strangers, trying to keep up while he slid through the crowd with a composed ease. She didn't see what they had to gain from fooling muggles. He was taking her out to a muggle magic show, which she thought was the most useless way for a witch and wizard to spend the little spare time they had.

"Reservations for a Mr. and Mrs. Walker," Albus informed the ticket usher, with a casual lean against the podium. _Our false alias_ , he mouthed slyly over at her.

 _Yes, I know_ , she mouthed back. He collected the tickets and she tugged at his arm, irritably, possessively, looping hers through his, "What crime did I commit to deserve to be married to you?"

He gave her a charming smile, dimples and teeth, one he'd undoubtedly practiced in the mirror that morning. "What crime haven't you committed?" he said, not-so-subtly elbowing her in the ribs as he led her to the theatre room. "Arson, treason, murder, robbery, resurrection; You deserve every bit of this."

"I have _never_ committed robbery," she said.

He shrugged. "There's time."

"But why do we _have_ to be married."

"We have the same false surname, stupid. What else would we be."

"Cousins," she shot ruthlessly, trying to offend him.

But Albus wasn't offended. He stared her down, with hollowed cheeks, like she was an imbecile.

"You've completely missed the point of this game."

"I get it, I just don't think it's very clever."

"It's cleverer than you," he scoffed, shoving her toward her seat, taking the one beside her and folding his legs. "And someday it's going to outsmart you."

She ignored this, watching as muggles poured into the theatre room.

"Al Walker and Rose Walker," she whispered the names, ran them over with her tongue experimentally.

His eyes glinted in the low-lamp light of the room. "You're growing fond," he said, patting her dress with affection, fingers swirling around the ridge bone of her knee-cap. "You wear deceit so well, Rosie." It was a double-edged compliment. "It's almost like you _are_ my wife." That was flat-out an insult.

"I think Hugo's going to hate the name," she retorted snidely.

"Hugo will love changing identities," he dismissed, turning his head towards the stage, hand firmly imprinted on her knee. "I'll tell him it's like being in a spy film. He'll be thrilled by the subterfuge."

She scowled. All these plans were absurd. She hated that Albus _kept_ expecting her to indulge these fantasies of a happily-ever-after with him. "You're delusional," she informed, flatly.

"You'll be surprised at how well my delusions play out," he said, with a sly wink. "'Walker' will prevail—now be quiet, the show's starting."

In 2028, Rose thought nothing of this statement.

Instead she was focused on her stomach, which was aching, eager for her next meal, and she felt the biting press of Tom's hiss against her brain: _What a frivolous_ _muggle activity… This is a waste of your time._

Slumping her shoulders in agreement with Tom, she receded into the cushioned chair, sprawling out in a deliberately unfeminine way. Albus gave her waist a quick pinch, earning a sudden death-glare from her. He gestured impatiently with his eyes, telling her to straighten up. Of course: Mrs. Walker was a composed woman who did not slouch.

Scattered applause rang as the magician finally came out. He wore a top hat and tail coat and had a annoyingly showman way of speaking.

Most of the show passed in a haze of boredom. The magician would entertain the crowd, inviting the wealthiest looking to the stage, then relieve them of their valuables.

Albus surmised quickly that the magician was little more than a highly effective pickpocket. "Should I go up?"

"Do you have anything valuable in your pockets?"

"Not in my pockets, no," he said, looking meaningfully at her. He kissed her cheek and lifted, before she could complain about how horribly corny that line was.

Nothing could have prepared Rose for what she was about to witness next. The magician brought Albus up from the audience and locked him in a closet. He then proceeded to set fire to the closet and burn it to ashes. Then from a closet across the stage he brought out an old man! Amazing! He had aged! Everyone rose to our feet and clapped, stamped and hollered, including the marginally unimpressed Mrs. Walker. But when they sat down for an encore the magician himself had vanished.

Then the show was over. Rose waited outside, tapping her foot impatiently, watching as the magician's assistant, a glittery raven-haired woman, escorted Albus out of the secret backdoor. She was nearly as pretty as Albus himself. Rose witnessed, with a hollow sinking in her stomach, as she scribbled her number on his palm after a long minute of conversation. She vaguely thought about how nice their kids would look.

Her heart gave a painful gallop.

As he strode over, she pinned him with an irritated stare and said, "You didn't have to talk to her that _long_."

His lips parted slightly.

"Are you…bothered?" he queried, far too innocently.

"What do you think," she snapped, reaching over and rubbing the digits off his palm.

"Good." He gleefully swung an arm around her shoulders, and they strode down the street. "I'm keeping you bothered from now on—It brings out your best."

"It brings out my angry," she said, seething. She tugged the arm from her shoulders and then she turned to him. "You are _mine_ ," she snapped, fingers clamping at his shirt and yanking him close. "You are _not allowed_ to talk to any girl prettier than me."

Albus blinked once. Twice.

"Deal," he murmured, slyly sticking out a hand at waist-level for her to shake. She clasped it and he pulled her closer, flush to him, drawing an arm around her waist. "Now make me extra happy and say that other thing too..."

Her face flushed. She peered both ways in the alleyway. "Here?"

"Yes, _here_."

"I—love you."

"Say it _again_ ," he instructed, tilting her chin so his eyes bore into her. "Breathier, slower, more emotion—say like it you _mean_ it."

"I…love you Albus."

The sharp angles of his posture waned. He leant in, pushing her to the wall, melding their lips together. "It sounds amazing when you add my name too," he moaned in a breathy voice. "Makes it so much more real...thank you."

"You're like an addict trying to get his fix," she chuckled softly against the press of his lips.

"I am," he replied, without a hint of irony.

They stood in a warm, comfortable daze, lazily making out. After a few seconds, his hands clasped around her face, scrutinizing her intently, objectively. A crease developed between his eyebrows as his gaze roved over her sullen features.

"You never smile properly," he observed. "Your eyes give it away."

"I can't smile properly if I'm not happy."

He scowled. "Happiness is a skill," he informed, matter-of-factly. "You have to practice it. It's not meant to come naturally."

"Who told you this?"

He tilted her chin up again, at him. "I arrived at the conclusion myself." His fingertips tugged at the ends of her mouth, forcibly raising her frown up. "You need to practice your smile. Once you can smile, you'll be happy too."

Was sociopathy fixable? A year of safety and away from terror may have given Albus the chance to grow and soften, but it seemed that some things remained out of his realm. He thought the secret to 'happiness' was facial maneuvering.

And even if she saw through it, she didn't want to ruin it for him.

"What other faces can you do?" she said. "Show me...surprise."

Albus' eyes etched in a comical shock. She suppressed a giggle.

"It's good, isn't It?"

"It's alright. Now show me grief."

Albus' face crumpled in a very convincing act.

She laughed. "You're like an actor."

The irony, again, was lost on him. "I'm a master impressionist," he said, smirking, pleased that he could amuse her. "See? Now I can do everything. I can wear any emotion for you."

 _For you._

 _For_ ** _you_**

The words made her heart hurt. They made her want to weep.

He saw it on her face. "What is it?"

"Nothing…" she whispered.

He stared at her, brow scrunched, inquisitive.

"Tell me," he ordered.

She swallowed, a hard ache rising up her throat. "I know you don't see it yet," she said. "But eventually, I have to die."

To her annoyance, Albus rolled his eyes. He lit a cigarette, a low chuckle spilling from his lips as he pinned her with a stare.

"Who said you're dying," he said, irritatingly smug. "How many times have people tried to kill you? How many times have _I_ let them?"

The words pricked a nerve. "You can't always control what happens to me," she murmured, sullen.

He rolled his eyes again. "You keep forgetting that I'm cleverer than you," he replied, tonelessly, blowing a stream of smoke. "And that I control the whole world— _And_ that I'm keeping you forever."

"Forever," she gave a breathless, incredulous laugh. "Just how will you manage that?"

He smirked sharply. He leant in, pressing a wet kiss to her chin that he trailed up to her mouth. He pried her lips open with his teeth and exhaled smoke, "By outwitting you, of course."

"Right, because I'm the bad guy." She coughed.

"You have a habit of working against me. Standing in the way of what I want."

"So I _am_ the bad guy."

His mouth unlatched from hers. His eyes shifted away, became eerily devoid for a second.

"I've calculated all outcomes," he said, his tone quiet and intent. "Every single timeline. And I've ascertained that yes, in some of them you _are_ the bad guy...But it's alright." He pressed a papery kiss to her brow, tilting his chin over her head. "What's important is that I still win."

In 2028, Rose didn't grasp his meaning.

"I'm also thinking of making a pensieve."

At her prolonged silence, he pulled back and quipped. "What?"

"Pensieves are for old men," she stated.

He scowled, petulant. "My namesake had a pensieve," he said. "Its existence helped my father learn about Voldemort—Pensieves are excellent for placing deliberate clues, aren't they? You can make a clue out of anything. Useless information in the right context can be very useful."

"Your namesake lived to be a 150 years old," she laughed, having no idea what he was on about. "He likely had dementia by then. He _needed_ one."

Albus shrugged. "This'll be a memory I put it mine," he said, softly, a bit sneakily. "To watch again and again when I'm 150 years old. My first date with my Rose Pose."

The words hit her like a blow to the chest. They pierced through the barriers in her mind and tears began to seep, stinging her eyes. She wiped at them furiously.

Albus frowned, thinking he'd said the wrong thing. He wrapped his arms around her hips, lifting her, tightening her legs around his waist, before he carried her away from the theatre and down the street. Her arms clung to his shoulders, his neck, and she kissed tearfully at the side of his head. In that moment they were strangers, their pasts were forgotten. They were also strangers to themselves who had forgotten who or where they were. They were the freakishly normal Mr. and Mrs. Walker. The crowd was thick but none of the ordinary sounds that could've reminded them, could have held them back, could have reached them. In that moment they were beyond the present, outside time, with no memories and no trauma and no past.

X

X

X

How was this possible?

I dunked my head out of Mr. Potter's pensieve, which I was perusing in his old home, my face flushed.

 _Walker will prevail._

 _Pensieves are excellent for placing deliberate clues, aren't they?_

Were my ears deceiving me? Had he really said these things? In 2028? How could he have known my name then?

Could it be that...Mr. Potter was trying to tell **_me_** something?

X

 **What's Al up to? Who is Walker? The clues are all there. Gimme your best theories ;-)**


	55. (a very important date) pt 2

I...was in a bit of a flux.

I had not expected this to happen. Not once in my investigation.

 _Walker will prevail._

Walker.

 **Walker**.

I was completely certain that Mr. Potter was trying to tell me something **directly**. Something very important he wanted me to know. No other explanation remained.

But How? And _Why?_

 _Pensieves are excellent for placing deliberate clues, aren't they?_

 _You can make a clue out of anything._

 _Useless information in the right context can be very useful_

 _This will be a memory I put it mine._

 _My first date with my Rose Pose._

Date. There was something important about that date that Mr. Potter wanted me to pay attention to ...that day...

Date!

The date on which that magic show happened was...

They were numbers. And at the time, Mr. Potter was deciphering numbers, the hours between the earthquakes. These were memories he had put in the pensieve for me to watch. He had surmised the numbers led to locations that the Creature would attack.

They had led to...

"Coordinates," I said out loud, scribbling down the date.

X

X

X

The coordinates were to a dig site.

They helped me unearth a...peculiar object.

X

X

X

 **The surname is Walker, I take it?**

I could not contain my thrill. I laughed sheepishly, incredulously, running fingers through my sweaty brown curls.

Hello, Mr. Potter. I wrote back. Stealing Voldemort's diary trick, are you? Very sneaky.

 **I'm not sorry about it.**

 **He stole things from me, I stole things from him.**

 **Never mind that.**

 **After all these years…**

 **I must sound so petty...**

 **I mean to say that Riddle is irrelevant. He was irrelevant then too. I hated him—no, hate is too strong of an emotion. Indifference was what I felt. He served no purpose other than to annoy me. He was a relic of the old world. Old men rarely interest me. You, on the other hand...**

 **Walker, are you a boy or a girl?**

I am male.

 **So you are** ** _Mr._** **Walker then...**

 **Age?**

26

 **Same age as myself. What do you do for a living, Walker?**

I am a historian.

Somehow, this didn't feel enough, so I added:

I am trying to understand how the War came to be. I am trying to understand what happened to erase Magic from the world.

For a second, the diary was still. Solemn.

 **Erase Magic...** The words came slow, contemplative.

It is a shame isn't it? Magic is gone from the world.

No response came.

I blinked. Was it possible that Mr. Potter did not know?

Then again, he had died early. So perhaps...

I did my best to fill him in.

Wizardkind died off in the muggle-wizard war that was initiated in 2031. It has been five decades since. There are no more wizards. One witch remains. She is sentenced to execution in about 5 days.

 **I see.**

 **Are you unhappy?**

What?

 **I'm sorry. That was poorly worded…**

 **I mean to ask**

 **Are you dissatisfied with your life?**

No…

 **Then why did you choose this profession?**

What do you mean?

 **I mean...Is there something wrong with your present that you choose to live in stories of the past?**

I frowned at the diary, confused.

There's nothing wrong. Everything is very peaceful now.

 **Isn't that the point?**

What do you mean?

 **If magic brought chaos, then isn't the world better off without it?**

I don't think so.

 **No?**

No. I think...Magic is chaos, but Magic is also brilliance. It is the love of an entire culture, an entire civilization. It is a god.

 **Magic has never been a god.**

 **It is a tool. A means to an end.**

Then it is a tool that gods wield.

 **Is that really what you believe, Walker. Did you think we were gods?**

I believe that you believed you were a god.

 **I…**

 **Well, you're not wrong about that.**

 **I assume you have been using my pensieve to help you understand what happened.**

Yes, but I haven't made it to the War yet.

 **Another question Walker...**

Yes?

 **Are you in a secure location?**

Yes, of course.

 **And others…**

 **What I mean is…**

 **Your family. Are they well too?**

Everyone is well. I told you, the War ended many years ago.

The year is 2087

 **That would mean…**

 **That would make me 81 years old. A withered old man.**

 **That is…**

 **Detestable.**

 **Repulsive.**

 **Tell me...Am I very boring now? Do I have wrinkles? Have I become my father?**

I'm afraid that you're not alive at present-day, Mr. Potter. As I mentioned before, wizardkind is dead.

You died a long time ago.

There was a very, very long pause.

 **Oh.**

I'm sorry.

Silence stretched for nearly a minute before words began to form on the page again.

 **Could you tell me... your version of events?**

You were killed off very early. You died at the precipice of the war. You were 26.

 **26...**

 **So shortly after making this diary...**

 **You are certain?**

I'm certain. My sources are very reliable.

 **And what are your sources?**

The archives in the Manchester Magical Library.

And the last surviving witch. She has been telling me stories about you. Would you like me to tell you the identity of this witch?

 **I know who she is.**

 **There was never any doubt.**

 **She was always forgetting that I'm cleverer than her.**

As I recall, she thought she would need to be killed off young.

 **She thought many incorrect things at the time. All the time, that is.**

 **I can't tell you what a headache all that was.**

 **How is she?**

 **What I mean is...**

 **She looks old? Plump?**

 **Covered in cobwebs?**

 **Knitting needles in hand?**

 **How grey is her hair?**

These are impolite questions, Mr. Potter.

 **I have been shut away for nearly five decades, indulge me a little.**

No knitting needles. She looks well for her age. She is very composed.

 **I don't doubt it.**

Lately, all she talks about is you...

 **Telling you horror stories about me, is she?**

On the contrary, she's making you out to be better than history does.

 **Damage control, then.**

 **And she has confirmed my death?**

I have reason to believe she did more than just confirm it. If you catch my meaning.

Absolute stillness fell upon the pages for a second, in what I could only presume was shock.

 **That...**

 **I...**

 **She has told you this or it is your deduction?**

For now, it is my deduction. We have not yet gotten to your death. We are three years away. She is one of two entities who I believe to be the cause of it.

The other is, of course, the Creature.

 **Of course.**

 **Can't ever forget him.**

 **I don't doubt that you are very clever, Walker.**

 **In fact, I'm certain of your brilliance.**

 **Which makes your existence… very confusing…**

 **I…**

 **Never mind that. I will figure it out. I always do.**

 **Explain your deduction in the meantime.**

Well, in all time I have spoken with her, trying to pry out information about the war…

Most of her stories have been about **you** and **not the war** , trying to paint you in a better light than the reputation history affords you. This leads me to believe that she does not actually care about helping me fill the archives. She does not care about the preservation of history. The war is just the backstory...the main story is **you**.

 **I see.**

 **So she is deliberately wasting your time.**

Not deliberately, no. I think she is a sentimental old woman who is spending her last few days trying to assuage a guilty conscience.

 **You assume she feels guilt.**

 **Perhaps she is gloating?**

In all the time I've known her, nothing about her manner suggests that she is gloating. I see the pain written on her face.

 **Facial expressions can be engineered. She learned that trick from me.**

 **Grief can be forged.**

 **History can be forged.**

 **It is written by the victor, after all.**

 **By the survivor.**

 **Has this self-proclaimed last witch convinced you that she is a benign old woman, riddled with regret, ready to keel over and die, all because a handful of muggles have decided it so?**

Yes… I am thoroughly convinced.

 **Oh Walker…**

 **I am disappointed in you. In this profession you have chosen.**

I'm sorry?

 **You are not paying attention.**

 **You have spent all this time focusing on the past, that you have completely forgotten to notice what is happening in your _present_.**

X

Gimme your best theories ;-)


End file.
